0012

I've been absorbed with my search for the vessel. Looking for links, for connections, for places and objects that might contain a clue to lead me to a clue to lead me to the vessel. It is quite the obsession.

I did have time to read some other blogs and then I read this. Is it true? Did A kill the Slender Man? Or did they somehow just drag their dreams within the Great and Silent City? It does seem like a pipe dream.

At this point, I am reminded of a passage from Borges:

It all began with a suspicion (perhaps exaggerated) that the Gods did not know how to talk. Centuries of fell and fugitive life had atrophied the human element in them; the moon of Islam and the cross of Rome had been implacable with these outlaws. Very low foreheads, yellow teeth, stringy mulatto or Chinese moustaches and thick bestial lips showed the degeneracy of the Olympian lineage. Their clothing corresponded not to a decorous poverty but rather to the sinister luxury of the gambling houses and brothels of the Bajo. A carnation bled crimson in a lapel and the bulge of a knife was outlined beneath a close-fitting jacket. Suddenly we sensed that they were playing their last card, that they were cunning, ignorant and cruel like old beasts of prey and that, if we let ourselves be overcome by fear or piety, they would finally destroy us. 

We took out our heavy revolvers (all of a sudden there were revolvers in the dream) and exultantly killed the Gods.

0011

Urbs inanitatis.

There is a city somewhere out there, a city that is large and small, with towering skyscrapers one instant and ruins the next. It is a million cities in one. It is the Great and Silent City.

For thousands of years, people have caught mere glimpses of the Great and Silent City. They have attributed it to dreams or hallucinations, discarding the wonder that they saw. Coleridge saw it once during an opium trip and even wrote a poem for it: 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

The poem, just like the Great and Silent City, will forever remain unfinished. The Silent City is unfinished due to its ever-changing nature. One could wander the City for years and years and never tread the same street 

twice. 

How do I know about the City? It is a knowledge gained through a meeting with a Mr. R. Kipling, who has now become an inhabitant of the City. Those who inhabit the City tend not to leave - the City does not let them. Mr. R. Kipling had an interesting view of the City, though it was perhaps tainted by the fact that his wife and son were lost within it as well.

Nonetheless, as I stated before, Jordan was poised between the Sea and the City. It appears that he has chosen the City, which I believe is a wise decision. The City is a representation of the Infinite, with its fractal streets and its non-Euclidean halls.

How does one go to the City? How does one find one of its Doors and open it? Unfortunately, the answer to that escapes my grasp.

Next: I shall tell you of where I went and then tell you of Tabularius scientiae, the Bookkeeper of Knowledge, one of the Others and another aspect of the Infinite.

0010

I'm sorry for not posting in a while. I thought I found the vessel and rushed to it, but it turned out to be for naught.

I promise, the next post I shall tell you all about the Great and Silent City.

0009

Aqua doctrina.


I wrote that I would tell of the Others. I believe that time has come. My search for the vessel has so far been fruitless, so I will distract myself by telling you, my audience, about one of the Others. They have many names (of which I will not specify), but I simply call them the Others or the Otherkind. I do not yet know if they are aspects of the Infinite (as I suspect the Slender Man is), but I will continue to research them.

The first of the Others that I will tell you about is one I call Aqua Doctrina. "The Doctrine of Water." This is one of the most complex of the Others, yet at it's core, the simplest. As Coleridge wrote, "Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." Water is the giver of life, yet an overabundance can make us drown.

The Doctrine of Water knows drowning. That is its first lesson: how to drown. Perhaps I should clarify: the Doctrine of Water is better known as the Ichor or (the appellation I much prefer) EAT. One drop of EAT and you start to drown. You drown inside your head; your mind becomes a reflecting pool that can only show you one thing, your obsession, and you fall into this obsession and you drown in it.

My brother would call this an aspect of the Zahir. "A very complex dream becoming a very simple one." Yet the Doctrine of Water knows infinity, too. EAT consumes all of what you are and replaces what was once you with itself. And then it learns. What does it learn? It learns how to be us. It learns to move, to speak, to be and act human. It becomes a mirror of us. What we do, it mimics. And then it learns and then it does it again until it knows everything about us. Every single time, it learns. It has learned an infinite times. (Dr. Masaru Emoto believes that all water is capable of learning, of mimicking. He claims water crystals can change due to words written on their containers. Whether you believe his claims or not, it makes no difference to the Doctrine.)

What you have become is called a Camper. One who camps. One who stays still and waits, knowing and learning. They have become a part of the Doctrine of Water, the Aqua Doctrina. They live in the Sea of Knowledge and, if we asked, they could tell us secrets untold.

I know only of the Doctrine of Water through the life of Jordan Dooling. It's a fascinating read, one that just now seems to be coming to an end: Jordan seems to have a choice between playing the Grand Game with the Doctrine of Water or staying within the Urbs Inanitatis, the Great and Silent City. One wonders just what he will choose.

If my quest for the vessel still bears no fruit next week, I shall talk more about the Great and Silent City. Until then, I shall go about my "normal" life and search for the vessel and study when I can.

After all, there is always more to learn.

0008

Life.

I have an everyday life. When I stop blogging, when I stop searching for the Aleph, I go back and I become normal. But this is not real. This is not what I really am. I am not a pencil pusher, a phone monkey, caged in a cubicle. But it pays the bills.

I get distracted at work. It's hard to pretend to be a normal person, not when I know that this normality can be stripped away in a second, that the world is so much stranger than everyone around me. How can I sit down for lunch and discuss the weather, the latest episode of The X-Factor, or whatever personal problems seem to plague my coworkers this week? Sometimes I want to stand up and start running and never stop, not until I've found the vessel and the POE and the Aleph, not until I've found Heaven itself.

But I know. I have to pay for everything. My quest isn't free. There is no such thing as a free lunch. No lucky breaks, no fairness in life.

At least I am not haunted by Him. Not by Him or the Others. I've yet to mention the Others, have I? Well, I will. I am glad that they have not interrupted my normal life -- though sometimes I wonder what would happen if the Slender Man were to walk into my office one day. What would my coworkers do then? Scream and flail about probably.

Ah well. Back to the life.

0007

The vessel.

I need to find the right vessel. The right vessel can see things that will lead to the Aleph. The right vessel can lead me to the point of entrance, the place of enlightenment, the purity of experience. The vessel leads towards the POE. "Once upon a midnight dreary..."

No, concentrate. In the Borges story it was a "small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance." But it won't always look like that. Why would it? It could look like anything. You can view all of creation through it. I'll be able to sleep again once I find it.

But first I need the vessel. The vessel to the POE to the Aleph. Does this sound like obsession? It probably is. But what better thing to be obsessed about.

Obsessed about the entirety of creation. Obsessed about all things.

0006

The Infinite.

I've been thinking about stories lately. The structure of stories. Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. A nice contrast to the Villain without a Face, right? The Monomyth: "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

I know a little about the Core Theory, the theory that bestowing titles forced the story to fit into something it was not. But this was never a story about heroes and villains, good and evil. This is a story about the infinite and the finite.

The Slender Man can appear wherever He wants. He is the Infinite. Open a door, He is there. Look out a window, He is there. It does not matter where you run, He will find you. We are the finite. We are limited to the world around us, to the ticking seconds of the present.

But what if we weren't? What if we could see everywhere all at once? We could see where He would be before He would be there. We could see Him wherever He went. We would be on equal footing.

I seek the Infinite. I seek the Aleph.

0005

The Known and the Unknown.

There are so many sides to Him. So many facets. You may read in one place how He attacked in a violent rage. In another place, He is calm in his killings. His arms are tentacles, are tree branches, are many, are few. How do you reconcile so much information about Him? Are there more than one? Are the dimensions bleeding into one another, creating confusion after confusion?

Perhaps it is simply that the more we know, the more He changes. Perhaps this is part of His game, a game that amuses Him and no one else. We learn something about Him -- and He changes it. Think of the first things we knew about Him. Are they still true?

Perhaps this is some strange observer effect. The more we know, the less we know.

The only thing that is known for sure is that nothing is known.

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡

What is the Zahir?

If the Aleph is true, if all that Borges wrote is true, then the Zahir is true. The Zahir is the opposite of the Aleph. As the Aleph reflects infinity, the Zahir reflects nothing. If you look at the Zahir, eventually it will become your entire world, everything you know. It will be what you dream, what you think, what you breath. It will become you.

If the Aleph is Heaven, the Zahir is Hell.

My brother seeks the former. I know that if he finds it, the latter will soon follow. Better than both are lost than both are found.

What does this have to do with the Slender Man? It was Him that sparked this obsession within my brother, our history with Him and others.

Make no mistake: I am not a hero nor a villain. Neither is my brother. We are human. Our nothingness differs little: it is a trivial and chance circumstance that he should be the seeker and I that which hinders.

"I will no longer perceive the universe, I will perceive the Zahir. According to Idealist doctrine the verbs 'to live' and 'to dream' are rigorously synonymous; as for me, thousands of appearances will become one; a very complex dream into a simple one. Others will dream that I am mad, while I dream of the Zahir. When every person on earth thinks, day and night, of the Zahir, which will be dream and which reality, the earth or the Zahir?"

0004

The others.

What a disappointing day. Not much happened for all the symbolism of six ones. Let's see what did happen, shall we?

The blogger A, who had previously returned from a long hiatus, berates the other bloggers and issues a challenge: a puzzle that needs solving on a blog about emptiness.

Doc, from Return to Slender, is heading towards Hope, the Runner's haven, having kicked his addiction. Elaine, on the other hand, is leaving Hope for a little bit in search of some lost children. (Is it strange that the name of the Runner's haven is same name as the place where a monstrosity was born?) And speaking of lost children: something is with them in the forest. Perhaps a cat, perhaps a smile without one.

James Hunter goes to Pensacola and meets an old friend. And perhaps gets a glimpse of something larger than anything he has seen before.

Jeannette Cotton speaks of her grandmother, who had a special relationship with a Runner -- but he didn't run from Him, but rather from the "Shadow of Death."

Lisa Wells is finally informed about a certain slender gentleman and I-330 goes looking for a good book. One wonders where she found it.

Michael talks about sand and time. A small post, but I think I'll continue reading.

Someone known as the Extra Piece speaks of the universe Unraveling. How can one see what isn't there?

And, finally, Jcarlson sees another episode of Candle Cove, an obscure children's show, this episode talking place in the Bird Man's realm. Quite horrific for a children's puppet show.

And that was all for today. Was it a disappointment? Nothing large happened. Or did I miss something? Did something slip under the radar?

Only time will tell.

0003

The Number One.

Today is 11/11/11. That's three elevens.  Six ones.

One is the loneliest number, as Harry Nilsson wrote, that you'll ever do. He wrote it after calling someone and getting a busy signal. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

One is the first. One is Aleph in Hebrew. It looks like an N. It's used in Aleph numbers, which represent the size of infinite sets.

One leading to infinity. 11/11/11. Beep, beep, beep.

Let's see what will happen today.

0002

The Slender Man.

Is He the answer that I seek? Can He see all things, all places? Since we cannot see what He sees, we do not know. And what we do know about Him is contradictory, a mixture of the truth and lies, reality and illusion and hallucination.

I saw Him when I was six, but I've never seen Him before. I saw Him in others, in the scared and frightened, in the furtive looks and nervous tics. I did not know then what they meant, but I know now. My parents had seen Him. And they knew that it was time to run.

But time catches up to all of us eventually.

0001

The Aleph.

A moment in time and space where one can view the entire universe, every single instant, every single moment, every single second all at once.

It exists. All that Borges wrote about exists. "Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality." All things exist. So it is written in the Book of Sand.

The Slender Man exists. I know this. He is fiction and yet he exists. If, then. If the Slender Man, then the Aleph.

I call myself "the Aleph" after it, because it is what I want to be. I want to view the universe inside myself. I want to reflect all things. But if not, let me simply find it. Let it be found.

Let Heaven exist, though my place be in Hell.

"I saw the rotted dust and bones that had once deliciously been Beatriz Viterbo; I saw the circulation of my own dark blood; I saw the coupling of love and the modification of death; I saw the Aleph from every point and angle, and in the Aleph I saw the earth and in the earth the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth; I saw my own face and my own bowels; I saw your face; and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret and conjectured object whose name is common to all men but which no man has looked upon -- the unimaginable universe."

"I felt infinite wonder, infinite pity."