CYCLE II

(I strongly recommend a comparison with UCB version of this Cycle II.  Parts of this section might be corrupted or missing.)

METAPHYSICS

8[6] Dragon Womb

***

(‘Interview With a Mystic’)

From

THE NEPSIS FOUNDATION

CYCLE II

By

A. PRIEST

[Father Adam (Priest)]

Stephen Frost PhD, Editor ©2005

CYCLE II Book One

CYCLE II Book Two 1-10 CYCLE II Book Two 11-21  CYCLE II Book Two 21-27 CYCLE II Book Two 28-30 CYCLE II Book Two ADDENDUM   CYCLE II creates a collection of Nepsis prose (fiction and non-fiction narratives, essays), poems, and paintings to suggest the sensibility of an oracle such as the I Ching or even Siwa- i.e. the world in which an Oracle operates. (STILL DEVELOPING…)

THE ORACLE OF XIBALBA

This work describes how to cast a spell… to save the world– or destroy it.

(How to Control One’s Dreams…)

  …Bishop, now begins something that is for me very important, very interesting. During the year preceding the 2nd Yemen trip, I re-wrote the story that I have been telling you, but rearranged its various elements into a more fictional context. Over a long period of time, this process produced a new cluster of symbols, characters and insights necessary for a shamanistic consciousness to give rise to structure the “problem” into an other-world scenario wherein the issues at hand could be isolated, amplified and resolved in a way to effect the reality of this world. There is, at least, a mutual fecundation between worlds that takes place. In other words, the process produces a ‘gospel’, a ‘god or good word’, ‘a word of power’ sufficient to effect change, in the rhythm of Being itself or at least in the direction of the “human project.”   Here is a shadow of an Oracle, because that sensibility must also be engaged (redeemed?) to face the diabolic challenge in this story!   The personality of the main character, Father Adam, is broken up into several characters, but not schizophrenically as happens in the natural world, rather artfully in order to heal the diabolic, uncontrollable, actual schizophrenic rending of the integrity of creation.   In some religions there are two ‘ways’, the way of Life, (Truth, Spirit, Wisdom) and the way of Death or Sin. The second way is characterized by the figure of the Prince of Lies, delusion, deceit and hubris. But there is another kind of lie. That is the lie that tells the truth–Art. Art creates something ‘artificial’ to deceive deception, (the Sin of ‘self alone’) and to survive ‘Satan’, the ‘test’ of the world. Thus I use art as a means in this battle of Being, of perception, of Self.   Also, telling this story at the proper moments, ‘communicates me’ with the deeper Powers of this ritual and gives me the energy for its completion.     …Given enough time, in both personal and cultural issues, not only is truth revealed, but even wisdom bobs to the surface of perception.  Myths arise from the collective memories of generations and form into clusters of stories that reveal the psyche of a culture.  Likewise, I have focused on a complex of cultural and personal issues that now produce a spectrum of critical, artistic and literary works.  Over the past 30 years my project has developed interrelated clusters of essays, paintings and stories (with different versions of important fictions repeated from ‘different sources’).  Certain themes within this series of literary and artistic cycles have gained for me a Masters degree from a Roman Catholic seminary, and then a Ph.D. at a major, secular university–this last evoked a sympathetic ‘response’ from one of the world’s greatest living philosophers and was nominated for publication by the American Academy of Religion by another.   The final issue of this introduction, Bishop, regards the style or form of this presentation. What developed after four novels and several short fictions, was something more primordial than the clever, effective artifice of the novel.  The final form combines a technical, metaphysical journal- a grimoire, with a picaresque reminiscence, or travel book.  The Book, this bible, is a collection of reflections and clustered tales, some historical, some merely true. It describes a curve of perception until it becomes too dangerous or too esoteric to talk about.  The patterns of the overall form are meant to emulate, support, perhaps replace, at least reflect, the Liturgy of Hours, the Divine Office–I’ve prayed this material since 1974–and yet have the same effect of holiness and salvation.  The Church has not yet been able to express itself as fully, or freely as I have here about the Spirit in the world.   One possible reason is that people still need to project their fears, rebellion and malice into an object outside ourselves.  The Devil, for instance.  That tendency must be absorbed/transformed into a whole before the world can be saved.  Second, people naturally fall into a hierarchy; elite and common, that says little about the inherent efficacy of the ineffable Spirit in each and all.  In order to approach a resolution for these and related topics, I have endeavored to treat such touchy topics as sexuality, or sexual identity, with the same engaged detachment as pure science, or a serious Tantric yogi.  I use both the purity and impurity of the world to find its destiny, its real face, one with the Spirit. I have determined to engage the archetypes of, the psyche of, the gods of, all things- to affect the salvific intentions of my vocation since one cannot approach the Spirit without its creation.

NEPSIS FOUNDATION

___________________________________________________________________________________