September 6, 2022 12:00 AM (EDT) 🎶
‘In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil, our most beloved star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out.
“Hello New York! How are you this evening? Guys and gals, ladies and gentlemen, New Yorkers one and all, we appreciate you coming to this fabulous party - three cheers for the hosts!!! … [toasts] … We hope you enjoyed Act 1 - give it up for that clown! … [applause] … But now, for Act 2, we’ve got something very special for you this evening, now that night has fallen - we’ve hired… a magician!! A magician who claims not just to have, but to be able to give you: ‘POWER BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS’ - ha!, two for one, a comedian too - help me welcome on stage the magician - you’re up!… [applause] … Now, in Sans Serif font, I kindly ask you for your attention. Please silence your cell phones, the show is about to begin. During the show, we ask you not to leave, as that may disturb the audience. Thank you, and enjoy the show… - Lights!”
[the lights turn off]
[A man, coweled in a royal blue cape, steps forward, and with the strike of a match, which fails to light, still somehow manages to light and hold forth a wand, made of sage, Sage, the ancient herb of the sages, which he lifts up, into the darkness, which flickers in a gentle breeze of night air, the wind coming through the windows, revealing his royal purple robes beneath…]
I speak to the New Yorker. To the part of myself that does not believe. That thinks that magic is silly, and for children; that grown ups should desire, seek and possess the things that really matter in life: sex, pleasure, money, power and possessions. I speak to the New Yorker, who understands life is a vicious competition for scarce resources. I speak to the New Yorker, who is realistic about relative strengths and weaknesses, pragmatic about risk-adjusted-return, and does not dare beyond means. I speak to the New Yorker who scorns heroes, other than the heroes made in his or her image - the relatable ones, the people on magazine covers, the social media celebrities - because they don’t have superpowers… the only superpowers a New Yorker believes in are beauty, brains and bucks. I speak to the New Yorker who knows that there is nothing out there other than this world of matter and energy, of atoms - that’s all there is, just… ‘stuff’! I speak to the New Yorker who realized that santa claus and the tooth fairy don’t exist at a late age, and has never forgiven their parents and society for being duped, and refuses to ever fall for that sort of trick again. *I speak to the New Yorker *****who believes the only enlightenment known to man is drugs, which are just chemicals. I speak to the New Yorker who wants to be rich and live in a skyscraper, but who hates billionaires and anyone grand and daring, the sorts of people who build skyscrapers, or do anything extraordinary - those people are just arrogant megalomaniacal narcissists, full of themselves, and more than a little bit crazy too, in fact, dangerously crazy, and possibly a menace to society. I speak to the New Yorker, who cannot stand poetry, who hates religion, and anyone, anything metaphysical - who mutters ‘Incredibly superstitious!’ under his or her breath…
For they know not what they do.
Nor what they speak! Yes, they are incredible, these superstitions… Oh my dear New Yorkers, allow me to be your Virgil, and you my Dante — having already been shown the Realms of Gold , I will take you along on a journey, down, down, down… into the Dark Places, and then beyond the Darkness, into Light, and beyond the Light… back here, here where you are standing now, we will return home, to this World, this Middle Earth, the child of Light and Darkness, that they have born together, and see it, as if for the first time…
***“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea.***
*So ***come now, having shown you the heights of superstition, let me show you the depths - let us plunge far into utterest Night! If you suppose your Dreams are fancies and fairytales, never mind the demons in Night-mares, nor let them haunt you — for after all, you’re New Yorkers! … So there’s nothing, nothing at all, to fear, is there? … No, it’s all, just, a bag of tricks, magic tricks… illusions! Yes, Illusions, that’s what I deal in… I’m a magician after all — welcome to the party, I’m the entertainment, the show has begun! So now, [in a grand motion, casting a wide arc with his left arm, opening his palm as if to release magic dust]… Dismiss away all illusions, if you can, and be enlightened again - and then return, from all your exploring, come back to your flat-world of just ‘stuff,’ and see it again, as if for the first time, and tell me, if it still looks the same to you.
After all, there’s nothing to fear - you don’t believe in any of these incredible superstitions. Allow me to do you the favor of showing exactly how deep these superstitions go, and how outrageous their proportions, so that the next time you make a new person’s acquaintance and they ask for your star sign, you can mock them without detection, simply, by knowing Astrology better than they do. Or, when someone tells you about Kabbalah, instead of just rolling your eyes, you can show off your Numerology, or discuss the meaning of Signs & Symbols, and how to interpret Dreams, or talk of Nominative Determinism. Oh, maybe, if I can explain my people to you, you can at least pity us better for our superstitions, and you’ll be able to make fun of us at a completely different level.
Speaking of fun, let’s have some… Come! Come with me! I will take you on a psychadelic journey, into the unconscious… It will be fun, at the very least, and we can laugh about it afterwards… or never speak of it again.