Friday, November 19, 2004

Soup bowls and bowls of soup

All study of words, concepts, ideas - be they from the mouths or writings of your neighbor, your guru, your philosopher-teacher, or your saviour-god - is the attempt by your own consciousness to conceive of itself, to know itself, utilizing the same thing that gives rise to it in the first place - the thoughts swimming around therein. It's like legs trying to conceive of walking, while being legless, or eyes trying to conceive of red, while being totally blind from birth.



The mind, the conscious part of the brain, gives rise to thoughts, and whether those thoughts arrive from external sources - email lists, books, or other humans - or internally - from memories, which were originally external, or just after-thoughts about them - is irrelevant. Once the mind is in it's automatic-running operation, the thoughts being produced therein have about as much chance of conceiving of the mind, as the legs or eyes do in their futile quest mentioned above.



The soup can't know the bowl, the soup is soup. Take the soup out of the bowl, and there's nothing with which to conceive of the bowl. That's why, not realizing this, everybody seeks external soup to fill their bowl, so that they can swim in the soup while believing they are "coming to greater understanding of soup." Well maybe they are, but B.F.D. Soup is not the bowl, and knowing more about the soup (the bible, the teaching, the words from your dead hero/saint/guru) is not what consciousness is attempting to do, it's what the fictional pseudo-hero it setup to be frontman (strawman) believes it is attempting to do.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Your being attracts your life

Simple sentence, easily understood. You hear it and to one degree or another think you understand it.



Within that triad, exists all possibilities - from the creation and destruction of universes, to the creation and destruction of thoughts in your head, to the creation of destruction of "I's to think them."



Let's play a game of deconstruction, and see if we can connect the process to feeling, to some kind of otherwordly (not sic)sensation.



*************



People believe that teachers and students, gurus and followers, saviors and disciples, arise in one specific way - an individual, by his presence, by his "being" attracts those who can value and evaluate that experience to a degree necessary to willfully gather around that individual. Jesus gathered his flock by appearing to those who could evaluate him. Gurdjieff gathered his students, by appearing to those who could evaluate him. The leader is the active force in this duality. The follower is the passive force. The neutralizing third force, is the Word, the teaching, and in that triality, the teacher provides the follower with the Words to evaluate him (his actions), and them (his words). >>His<< being has attracted His life, and He remains the primary mouthpiece within that new duality. It is a top-down creation, or as some have termed it, the ray of creation. It begins by someone playing the role of speaker seeking listeners.



But there is another way - in fact the only way, unknown by most -that groups are grown in the culture within which they arise. (You can here insert the image of a pure culture in a petri dish.) A small group of friends, already to a point in their studies - of Life and themselves - **look for and find** a suitable mouthpiece, someone who can and will take on the role, of Teacher, Guru, Savior. The key phrase herein being, "look for and find". That is, someone in the already established group of friends agrees to take on the role and task of Teacher, becoming the Primary Mouthpiece. The rest agree never to talk about this direct way, never to talk about This direct way, never to talk about This Direct Way.



The leader is the passive force in this duality. The followers are the neutralizing force. The New Teaching is the Active force, and in that triality, the chosen teacher provides his friends, with the Words to evaluate consciousness in realtime. >>Their<< beings have attracted their lives. It begins by several playing the role of listeners seeking a solitary speaker. He becomes the primary mouthpiece (the only one who can/does talk about The Direct Way). It is a bottom-up creation, or as some have termed it, the ray of evolution.



*************



Now, back to the initial statement: "your being attracts your life" -a statement which you already completely and totally comprehend, as it is pre-wired into the DNA of everybody, from the molecules out, from "the bottom up".



See if you can get a handle on this hook: all indirect ways, from christianity to buddhism, from fourth way to theosophy, from psychology to spirituality, are Top Down. In that, for you, they literally begin with the Word, as spoken by a Someone. Therefore, you have never and almost CAN never observe and participate in a Direct Way, as it is bottom up.



Why would anybody want to be your teacher? (You can here re-image that pure culture in a petri dish... you didn't forget it did you?)

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Characters in a dream

"Man is asleep in a dreamworld, but can awaken" is more than just titillating for a few, here and there, who run with it - to the book store, to their best friends, to the numbers on the bookmark, to the home of one of your special friends - and then attempt to develop the feeling further, for sometimes decades.



But, until you realize you are just a character in that dream - of someone not in that dream - there you remain.



All these stories you were told about your many I's, and your personalities - and even the false ones - and your soul striving for the spiritual life, is the dream that mankind continues to reproduce in every book written about it, and quickened into the temporary, pseudo-existence, by every head reading and talking about it - and that is the dream being referred to above.



You are still quite asleep in the dreamworld of others' making, and the only possibility for switching that duality into something akin to triality, is to invent your own dream for those pesky many I's you think exist "in you." (What a laugh that is, people who knowing nothing do things like - identifying different "I's" within themselves and others. This is so laughable, but laughing would spoil the joke. They don't even have one I.)



You don't even have one I in there, let alone many; only transient spikes of neural energy and no one at the SWITCH!!

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Metaphor

You all know the word, and you also understand the difference between, literal, metaphor and symbolism, yes?



Unless you begin to comprehend the source and origin of those concepts, you remain bound by them, bound to them, as Brer Rabbit is bound to the tarbaby. The more he tries to extract himself - his limbs - from the tarbaby, the deeper and more tightly he is consumed. http://sammoore.org/archives/000149.php



The metaphor that man is living a life in darkness, but can emerge into the light, points to something existing in literal reality. When the light in you that shines on, and on, and on each day you arise from your bed, is but an ember, it's glow is like the reddened eyes of a monster emerging from that darkness.



The embers existing in reality - from the caveman's fire at his feet - exist first somewhere else, that only metaphors can suggest. The metaphor is not the literal reality, except in one and only circumstance, then it becomes the living history of the sun itself.



The same holds for all other metaphors, and all language is built upon the wordrock of metaphors - this is like that, and that is like this, and so metaphorical life begins... AT the redburning ember existing in the only reality it can know.



This is a three-way switch, somewhere, that allows all of tangible and non-tangible reality to take form.



The two known directions the switch can be moved to - by forces man can only imagine (metaphorize, symbolize) - is a union of opposites, and metaphors and symbolism are those opposites. The third direction, is the literal (as in, finding the source and origin of those linguistic-only (intangible) devices), made Glowing like the Sun.



All these metaphorical representations of man's **apparent** condition - that man is asleep but can awaken, or that man is living in the dark but can step into the light, or that man is existing in a kind of inner captivity from which he can escape, is beautifully poetic and as useful as they can be, but, gawd are they FAT... slovenly overweight, wastefully hefty. The key-phrase being, from above, "as useful as they **can** be" - being only for you and every human who's ever lived, metaphors and symbolism - for there, is no the 3rd direction, the 3rd mode of human existence - awake in the light of freedom, in a KNOWN literal reality.



ps- the tarbaby story was intentionally written, and the several metaphors freely represented therein, were intentional, and the briar patch is a real existing place, etc., etc., but you do get the drift.... right?

Monday, November 15, 2004

Thrust and Parry

In any group of people - being social creatures - there are always the more powerful and the less powerful - though this can also be stated, the less submissive and the more submissive, depending upon how one "sees oneself" - but the end-result is always the same. Someone takes control, and the rest vie for control (or shudder in the background), utilizing certain techniques that society has taught them - head bowing, fawning, taunting, trickery, subterfuge, teasing, direct bodily confrontation, etc.



Being civilized creatures, no longer living in caves, and killing their neighbors for food and sex, that drive - of the powerful to remain in power, and the powerless to strive to overcome the powerful - has shifted, from the realm of the body to the realm of the mind.



Today, we are still driven to take control, utilizing whatever methods and techniques we've been taught by the society, but with certain safeguards and protections in place, laws, social norms, religious tenets - primarily for the sake of the continuance of the body - but, curiously, with no such safeguards and protections in place to protect the mind.



Picture, if you will, two men trying to become the most important man in the group - however large or small, from head of the bird-watching club, to the head of the state or country. Neither will directly attack the other man physically, but will engage in all manner of personal attacks of the other man mentally - and without shame or guilt. It is actually expected that if a person can't defeat someone intellectually, then it's perfectly acceptable to attack him personally (attacking his reputation, his associations, his present and past actions, etc.), even while it's unacceptable to attack him physically.



By taking another's words (and, his verbalized or written words are necessary - that is, you can only attack someone for what they've said or written, never for what they think), and turning them, spinning them, altering them in some way, they can be used as weapons against the other. It's the time-honored and age-old warring technique of, "thrust-and-parry", only applied in the realm of thought.



By the time a person has graduated from grade-school, at the latest usually, s/he has become a master technician in the art of thrust-and-parry in order to become the most powerful kid in the house, the neighborhood, the schoolyard, and this includes females, who in fact are more deadly than the males.



This is not learned behavior, believe it or not; it is built-in to the organization of the brain, with it's two competing hemisperes and the never-neverland between them, that is virtually off-limits except to the most most powerful. This is where the established tyrant and his trusty strawman setup their strategies for dominating, both the individual and the environment at large.



Everyone's inner life amounts to nothing more than monologues by a tyrant, or worse, the dialogues of a tyrant and a strawman. And EVERYBODY is in this condition if they are not presently conscious without thought - or, if not "without thought" at least not within thought.

Friday, November 12, 2004

The joy of sex, oops, I meant, conversation.

Would you rather have a conversation with someone who was smarter than you, or with someone who is dumber than you? (I will leave the definitions to you - hey, what else, right? - and you'll get no such from me.)

But, back to the sex-talk, oops... The question is totally irrelevant because the answer is immediately known by everyone, and it's so in-your-face obvious that to mention which one would be, almost, insulting. So you'll get no such from me. But, why? What's up wit dat?

When you are discussing, or "conversing" with another human - or even yourself (you still do that, right?) - you are inevitably speaking to someone dumber than you, for one very in-your-face reason: but, to mention it here, would be almost insulting.  So I will do it.

They can't know one iota, not even one micro-iota, about what's going in at the conscious part of your own brain, when it's discussing/conversing thoughts.

This is the physical description, can you but feel it, sense it, of the dumbing down (transforming to a lower intensity of vibration) of neural energies. The more "heated" (read: rapid-fire) the argument (all discussion and conversation is argument), the more dumbing down is occurring in the parties.

Ordinary humans are fueled by these dumbed-down energies, in the same way your 87-octane Toyota is fueled - and 94- or 95-octane fuels are either unprocessed, or wasted. As long as a person is tuned to operate at 87-octane (reading books and bibles and philosophy texts, and then discussing them ad nauseum), then what is possible in the utilization of 95-octane fuel goes by either, unnoticed, or as usual and then argued with, blah, blah, blah.

You've heard it all before.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Who knows?

People think they are so damn smart - hey, check with yourself, don't you? - but, nobody knows what they are talking about, especially when it concerns matters which are entirely intangible in nature. Regarding matters which are tangible, like how a waterwheel works, or how a gasoline engine carburetor feeds fuel to the cylinders, or how to build a nuclear bomb, many people know exactly what they are talking about, and can back up everything they say, or not, and can then be proven to be talking through their hat.



People think they are so damn smart, but, nobody knows what they are talking about, especially when it concerns non-scientific, cultural matters like which religion is superior, which style of art or music is superior, or which president would be superior. These are NOT physical matters - though they refer to physical things in some cases - they are entirely non-physical intangible matters, and this is the glaring reason why nobody knows what they are talking about. Just opinions, theories, talking to hear themselves talk.



But, that is not surprising at all, and certainly not an indictment of anybody - since everybody is included "in that rowboat" - but, what is even more interesting, is that nobody - whether they be uneducated or have two Phd's - realizes this. The closest anyone ever comes to it, is thinking everybody ELSE is clueless, except themselves, of course.



There is only ONE thing that anyone can know anything about, though even when knowing this one thing, most can't even begin to talk about it, because they haven't truly experienced the knowing, beyond sensing it, or feeling it. Not until a person knows something, feels it, and senses it, can he discuss it at all.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Astrology and philosophy

There are large groups of people studying astrology and philosophy trying to understand what's going on inside them (and everybody else), and they spend many hours everyday talking about them, defending their viewpoints, "developing" their viewpoints, flitting around from cafe, to cell phone, to email list.



Of course, there are just as many studying cosmology and psychology trying to do the same thing.



But it's all top to bottom attempting to overcome a limitation (your "mind") by means of the limitation itself.



This is the basis of all indirect ways - filling the centers with external energies and massaging and caressing and calibrating those energies - never caring how the energies got in that empty bowl, only swimming in the bowl of soup therein.



The direct action that one can take, is never mechanical, and never automatic - unlike the filling of centers and calibrating of energies - and sounds more like silence, than cacophony.

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

"You will know them by their fruits."

You know where that one came from?

Ahh, ah... no you don't.



Consider this question: do you believe that western civilization (the one you personally "know", and "by extension" the rest of the world - based upon your being alive on earth at this time) - is being run by the least intelligent and least enlightened maxi-bunch in the world, or conversely, by the most intelligent and most most enlightened mini-bunch?



"You will know them by their fruits."



That statement pertains to a "you", a "knowing", and "fruits."



The "will", "them", "by", "their" is entirely superfluous and unnecessary to the conscious mind that would first think that statement.



Remember the first consideration? Where is the "you"? Where is the "knowing"? Where is the "fruits"?



"You will know them by their fruits."



That statement could only come from the most most of the few of the few, and be referring to "conscious creations". Done on purpose and for a known and knowable reason, without prior regard for results - Action for the sake of action, or >>living<<.



So, here's a final question to ponder: IS such a "thing" as a "conscious school" (meaning nothing in particular, except a place with a living leader who speaks about "knowing") possible on Earth, our current and most favorite planet?



How would >>you<< >>know<
By their >>fruits<

Sunday, November 7, 2004

Higher and finer

The essential realization that the universe can make - at present (without us... er... me I guess) - is that energy is "what I am, that am what I am."



But then came life, on earth apparently - as far a human can know - and, well, you KNOW what happened after that, right? (I'll wait whilst you go look it up...)



Transformation of energy, conservation of energy. That's the name of the game, and the only essential realization that the universe can make, until Life provides "an update."



For about the last 5000 years of updates, do you seriously believe that the whole story has been told?



(Note: all religions say they know/speak the whole story including the final act, presumably from some "fat lady.")



Tick, tock, and someone *still* believes the whole story has been told!



Anyway, back to the story. Energies transforming in a human dreamed up the story it's telling to itself - coming out >>your<< mouth, and everybody >>else's<< mouth (that, friends and neighbors, is the environment in mind, the second reality - as distinct from the material environment I'm writing this upon and you're reading this upon, the first reality).



Remember now, you have two hemispheres in your head, a right and left, an east and west, an old and new, and the energy conversion occurs between them - in the corpus, callosum.



Both sides fail to realize the significance and importance of the corpus callosum: The arched bridge of nervous tissue that connects the two cerebral hemispheres, allowing communication between the right and left sides of the brain.



Typing and Reading occurs in one or another hemisphere.



The two branes (M-theory is a good place to interject some spare mental energy right about now) are in a stable state of continual-approximation and occasional-contact at multiple-points.



Knowing this, in it's entirety, having made it up, IT continues: the intentional transformation of energy cracks the molecules releasing raw nuclear/neural energy crossing the great divide. The communication between the spheres is conducted through the contact of higher hydrogens, finer substances, which can see through walls, BE through walls.



The essential realization that the universe can make - at present (without us... er... me I guess) - is that energy is "what I am, that am what I am."

Saturday, November 6, 2004

...row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...

...merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream...



Ever heard this one: "We are all the same, really; we are all in the same boat together..." and when you hear/heard that, what does/did your consciousness do? Do you remember, can you observe yourself to the degree that you can hear yourself reacting even now?



In the first place, the song is a lie - inside and out; you are not in a boat, you are not rowing a boat, and the only dream is merrily - somnambulistically - believing you are. There are no boats, there are no rowers...



...there are only songs, and sleepers singing them...



Of course, if you are following along - for the ride, so to speak - merrily singing the same refrain - then you probably believe mystics ride in the same boats as followers; if so, then you don't understand a thing about boat construction, water and wave dynamics, surface tensions, topologies, planetary gravity, and special and general relativity. (That is, mystics don't ride in no damn boats - they fly, or more preferredly, dematerialize/rematerialize at will.)



Can you get even a finger-hold and then a toe-hold, and then some stability on this rope-ladder to the stars? If so, send down some star-food if you don't mind.

Friday, November 5, 2004

The grand unifying theory of everything...

...well, pertaining to man and his little part of the universe:



It's not that there is no such thing, or that there can't be such a thing, it's that if you reveal it, there's not. Keep your hands off it, don't reveal it, and like a source of energy in an otherwise VOID, creations that can only be called by an idiot, "god-like" are birthed, in non-ending ever-expanding big bangs of something, the after-effects of which are clumsily termed, consciousness, awareness, beingness, and a few other-nesses.



ps - the "gut" is 'in-play' - and you can hear it - but only if you don't reveal it - that is, stop the play, burn the script, walk off stage, and other performance related terms I won't allude to here.

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Waking up - mechanically, versus, on purpose

If there actually ARE truths, TRUTHS, correct facts about life, humanity, humans, the universe - thoughts and ideas that you can't immediately "put your finger on" right now (of that, you are pretty certain), but when you hear them, you recognize them AS truth - then, why do you think you need to HEAR them, in the first place, to acknowledge their existence?



If you hear a truth, or more correctly represented, a tru-ism - like, "honesty is the best policy" - then why does it need to be stated, when, at the time you do hear it, you instantly go, "yes, right, that's correct." That is, you already KNOW it, you already LIVE by it, it's already a part of your ordinary consciousness.



(Note, you will be very hard-pressed to find someone who goes: "wait, just a minute, I always thought dishonesty and thievery were the best policies - that's how I've been living - maybe I should rethink that.")



ps- doors, are strange and funny things; animals don't have doors, only humans have doors, and only doors swing both ways - the way in is the way out... except for those creatures with no doors.

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

Conscious man

99.9999% of the planet believes instantly they are reminded of it, that humans are conscious, from the moment they arise in the morning till they enter dreamsleep at night.



.0001% or less knows there's much more to this than meets >>their<< eyes (not only their own, but everyone elses, who, coincidentally, don't realize this.)



Conscious man is one who can mind his own business.

Consider, all the rest of the human being - not counting that tiny part responsible for writing these words on this electronic paper -(skins, bones, blood, organs) exists at the pinnacle of "minding it's own business." The heart does only the heart-thing, the lungs do only the lung-thing, as does the liver, the kidneys, the stomach, the arms, the legs and intestines. Unless they suddenly don't, due to disease, illness or other calamity, when they stop doing that. You can not find anything in you, that is not totally, minding it's own business.



Only consciousness in man, can mind consciousness' business, and ONLY when it discovers/realizes that when it has stopped minding everything else's business, and is stable, that the rest of the time what it does has nothing to do with it - >>at all<<. That consciousness does not dictate what it does, it does not script it, it has no influence, nor input on it at all. Non-conscious consciousness is not playing by any script at all, the script is playing it, and the script IS, to mind everybody ELSE'S business BUT it's own, and who do you think that "someone else" is....

Conscious man is one who can mind his own business.

Consider, all the rest of the human beings living or dead - not counting that tiny part responsible for reading or writing these words on this electronic paper - (you reading, me writing) exists at the pinnacle of "minding it's own business." They follow the rule: out of sight, out of mind.



Until you can get your consciousness to not care one iota for any other consciousness but itself - neither living nor dead - you are totally asleep, in that that other human has invaded and captured your mind, entirely filling up that space/time wherein you "care your iotas", even if only in an infinitesimally small location in the conscious part of your brain - when that part is active, that's YOUR present consciousness.



If you (consciousness) are considering anything but consciousness, you are asleep. That is a fact in the Real World, and I don't mean MTV.



ps- now... watch how certain humans immediately invade your consciousness and start >>talking to you<< (G. says, 'man is a sleeping machine, of 3-4 centers, of chief feature and body type, etc. SO, blah, blah, blah.)



pps- or... maybe it (consciousness in you) starts arguing with the definitions of certain words and phrases as perceived by it's recent foray into yahoo email list reading, and starts composing a clever and intelligent retort... chortle, chortle.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004

The test... if you dare to take it...

Whether one has graduated from high school, grad school, or esoteric school (ooops, no one "graduates" from esoteric school, do they... they just keep attending, month after year after decade, or until, usually like clockwork, and the predictable running down of hormones, and sex drive, they lose interest and disappear into the background of their lives), there is a little "test" than one can take, just to see if they are, Real (by now, after all these years) or still imaginary (after all these many decades of talking and thinking about reality and stuff.



It's not a famous test - that is, nobody ever wrote it down, and nobody ever read about it - yet, out there it most definitely is, or more precisely IN THERE it most definitely is, can you but find it, can you but will yourself to seek it out.



There are not many things in life that your consciousness - that day-to-day routine consciousness everyone wears like a foghat around their heads, from the moment they get out of bed, till the moment they enter dreamsleep - can be absolutely certain of, in fact, there's only one thing. What?



Yet, there is one thing that NO ordinary man's consciousness is aware of... what?



That same thing.



The only thing it can be absolutely certain about, is the same thing that no ordinary consciousness can be aware of. How can that be?



What am I talking about?



ps- just because you don't know what somebody is talking about, doesn't mean they don't know what they are talking about.

Monday, November 1, 2004

Exo-, versus Eso-, and other terically-related matters

In the exoteric world, where everybody is naturally born, lives and has their livelihood, homes, cars, families, friends, and everything else, great value is placed upon education. People are put into schools of education from an early age - sometimes 4 or 5, into pre-kindergarten - and stay associated with some school until 20-25, depending upon, apparently, the innate intelligence and drive of the student, and the aims and goals that were inculcated into him by his peers, parents and teachers.



From the very beginning, the primary tool of education is the "test" - tasks which are assigned, and then accomplished by the students, and then graded for performance. From at least the 2nd or 3rd grade onward, tests are used to determine progress. Many argue that this is a poor method for determining progress, but nevertheless, it remains the primary tool for educating students in almost all subject matters, even art, music, and sandbox.



People are tested, and graded, and tested, and graded, and it has become the norm in most civilized societies. Thus is the foundation of society, supposedly, assured. The greatest majority of any civilized society is schooled, tested and graded, and when the age of majority is reached - between 18-21 or so, the person is considered a "qualified member of (exoteric) society."



But what about the esoteric groups and communities and mini-societies that spring up here and there throughout history. Do you actually know anything about them? Do you understand the relationship teaching and learning has to testing and grading in esoteric communities?



(Do you even give a golly god damn?)



Much has been written, mostly from imagination and conjecture of course, about esoteric communities, and mostly by those who never contacted such, and what is distinctly missing from such writings is the methodology of teaching the ideas to students, and grading or judging their performance, or progress.



That is, for example, a person will not advance to the 10th grade without successfully completing the requirements of the 9th grade, and those requirements are specifically known, detailed on paper, and verifiable. If a student fails or doesn't complete 3 out of 10 requirements, then he doesn't advance. Period.



But, in the esoteric communities, not only are people not tested, graded, and evaluated in this way, there are no acceptable means for determining advancement or progress. That is, everybody who calls himself a "member" of an esoteric community (by whatever name), can also, by that claim indicate his level, grade, or number.



The difference is obvious. In exoteric societies, claims can be backed up and proven to be correct. Either a person graduated from high school, got his B.A. degree from U.W., and his MBA from Harvard, or he did not. In esoteric societies, no one can verify anything at all - whatever a person SAYS he is, is taken to be the "truth of the matter," and no claims to the contrary are tolerated. And if they are, the person can always claim, "My teacher verified my attainment."



A Fourth Way person can claim to be a Man#6, and everyone is supposed to accept it. A Buddhist can claim to be enlightened, having attained nirvana, and everyone is supposed to accept it. But if the same people claim to have a Harvard MBA, it must be backed up and proven, to be accepted.



Does anyone here see something, just slightly, amiss?



Life, in general, is more rigorous in it's process-of-educating humanity in the "ways of the external world," than esoteric communities are in the process-of-educating in the "ways of the internal world", and no one sees anything amiss in that.



Now, some might claim that all the above is totally off-the-mark, that the author was "obviously" not in a "real" esoteric school, but they don't know what they are talking about. In the first place, the only esoteric schools anybody knows about, are pseudo-schools at best, led by individuals who make certain unsupportable claims.



There are, of course, real schools or work groups, but they are not documented in history, not yesterday and not today. They are word-of-mouth associations, virtually nothing is written down "for posterity" and operate in ways about which no one writing about them has any knowledge whatsoever, except that which is concocted from imagination.