1
00:00:32,560 --> 00:00:37,839
In my work as an author, I traffic in fiction,
I do not traffic n lies.

2
00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:40,958
Although I'll admit
that the distinction is a nice one,

3
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:43,714
and perhaps not easy
for the layman to make,

4
00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:46,310
with fiction, with art and writing,

5
00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:51,550
it's important that even if you're dealing
with areas of complete outrageous fantasy,

6
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that there is an emotional resonance.

7
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It is important that a story ring
true upon a human level,

8
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even if it never happened.

9
00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:35,271
Born in Northampton in 1953,
I started life in an area known as The Burrows,

10
00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:41,238
this was the oldest area of Northampton
and also the poorest.

11
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It was were the rural families,
who'd been drafted into the towns

12
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to man the conveyor belts
of the industrial revolution ended up.

13
00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:55,797
It had originally been the system
of moats and forts

14
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that surrounded Northampton's castle
before it was demolished,

15
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so all the streets had names
like Moat place

16
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or Fort street
or Dungeon Alley, or whatever.

17
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And this a quite bleak,
grim monochrome area.

18
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There were a great many families,

19
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who were probably, looking back,
incest families,

20
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where even the dog
had the same harelip.

21
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I found myself surrounded by
a monochrome world with limited opportunities.

22
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The only window out
of that restricting world was

23
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the tales of mythology
that I would read,

24
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or the bright 4-coloured
superhero stories.

25
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Adventures of people
who had no restrictions.

26
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People who could fly
over the house tops,

27
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people who could become invisible.

28
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This was a very important key,
to a very important door.

29
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It opened vistas of the imagination

30
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with which I was eventually
able to transcend

31
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and escape the limitations
of my origins.

32
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Now comics were something
that I was reading

33
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for as long as I could remember
being able to read.

34
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They were almost a staple part
of working class existence,

35
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they were something like rickets,
they were just something that you had.

36
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I'd originally read most of
the British comics,

37
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which mainly featured
working class children

38
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in working class environments,

39
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uhm, generally being spanked
by their parents or teacher,

40
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which was a peculiar fixation
of the British comics of my boyhood.

41
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And pretty much
they presented a world

42
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that was almost indistinguishable
from the world that I lived in.

43
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And thus I didn't find it
the most exotic world

44
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into which I could escape.

45
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Now when I was seven, I picked up
my very first American comics.

46
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These were bright,
garish 4-coloured things,

47
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that rather than taking place against
some anonymous Northern British backdrop,

48
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took place in Cities
like New York,

49
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which to me were
as exotic as Mars.

50
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The idea of buildings of that scale,

51
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the idea of this modernness
that seemed to pervade everything.

52
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This was a futuristic
science fiction world.

53
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And then against that backdrop

54
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you had these incredibly
colourful characters,

55
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who had these amazing powers,
who could transcend their human limits.

56
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I'd a ready been attracted
to mythology,

57
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fairy stories,

58
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anything which had people
that could fly

59
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or become invisible
or could lift huge mountains,

60
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or perform any of these heroic acts

61
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for which gods and heroes
are largely famous.

62
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And so, having discovered
the American superhero comic books,

63
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it was a fairly natural transition.

64
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Here was something where I didn't have to read
the same myths over and over again,

65
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but where every month I could read
something new about Superman or the Flash.

66
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This become a preoccupation.

67
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At first I was probably preoccupied
with the characters themselves.

68
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I wanted to know what
Batman was doing this month.

69
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Around about the time
when I reached the age of say

70
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12, perhaps a lot earlier,

71
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I became more interested in
what the artists and writers were dong that month.

72
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It'd finally occurred to me that
these stories weren't just drawing themselves.

73
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That somebody was drawing them,
somebody was writing them.

74
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And I became very knowledgeable
in the styles of the different artists,

75
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I became critically able to distinguish
between a good story and a bad story.

76
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And comic books were still very much
a part of my life,

77
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I mean, which was in physical terms
was changing quite rapidly,

78
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as it would for anybody at that age.

79
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I'd moved from my primary school
in the working class area into which I was born

80
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to a grammar school.

81
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Now, call me naive,
but entering grammar school

82
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was the very first time that I'd actually realized
that middle-class people existed.

83
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Prior to that I'd thought that there were
just my family and people like them,

84
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and the Queen.

85
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I had really not been aware
that there were was a whole strata of humanity

86
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in between those two positions.

87
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When I got to grammar school I realized that
I was one of the very few working class people there,

88
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because of the 11+ system
and its rigours.

89
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And that a lot
of the other children there

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had had the advantage of probably
a better education than I'd been privy to.

91
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Thus from being a star pupil
at my primary school,

92
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from being top of the class every year,

93
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and from being made head prefect
with a little green enamel badge,

94
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I suddenly plummeted to 19th
in the class,

95
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which was a tremendous blow
to my already insufferably huge ego.

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I don't think I ever got quite over that.

97
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Certainly by the next term
I was 25th in the class,

98
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I think for the next couple of years
I was second from bottom.

99
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I'd finally came to the realization

100
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that I was not going to cut it

101
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in the kind of academic world
that was spread out in front of me.

102
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I decided,
pretty typically for me,

103
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that if I couldn't win
then I wasn't going to play.

104
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I was always one
of those sulky children,

105
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who sort of couldn't stand to lose
at Monopoly, Cluedo, anything.

106
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So I decided

107
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that I really wanted no more of the struggle
for academic supremacy

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or anything of that nature.

109
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After having being expelled from school
at the age of 17,

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I found that my horizons
rapidly contracted.

111
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The headmaster
who had dealt with my expulsion

112
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had I think taken me rather personally.

113
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He had written to all of the colleges
and schools that

114
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I might have
thought of applying to

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and told them that they should
under no circumstances accept me as a pupil,

116
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because this would be a corrupting influence
upon the morals of the other students.

117
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I believe that he did
at one point in the letter,

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refer to me as "sociopathic"
which I think was rather harsh.

119
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The same thing
applied with jobs,

120
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any job that I was applying for meant
that I would need a reference from the school

121
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and the references
I was getting from the school

122
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were kind of the anti-matter
equivalent of references.

123
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Thus the only jobs
that I could get,

124
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were ones were they didn't give a damn
who they employed.

125
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So I found myself working
at a skinning yard and tannery

126
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at the bottom of Bedford Road
in Northampton,

127
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which was probably one of the bleakest places
that I'd ever encountered,

128
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where you would turn up at 07h30 in the morning
and drag huge heavy dripping sheep skins

129
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out of vats of mingled blood,
urine, water and excrement.

130
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That the only relief from this

131
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was the concentration camp humour

132
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of throwing chopped off testicles
at each other as a break to the monotony.

133
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And it was indeed monotonous.

134
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I was expelled from that job after a couple
of weeks for smoking dope in the mess room,

135
00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:33,152
which really wasn't improving
my career curve any.

136
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The next job I was able to get
was that of a toilet cleaner at a hotel

137
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and it more or less went downhill from there
until I finally ended up as a comics writer.

138
00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:55,832
Quitting my day job and starting my life
as a writer was a tremendous risk,

139
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it was a fool's leap,
a shot in the dark.

140
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But anything of any value in our lives

141
00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:04,232
whether that be a career,
a work of art, a relationship,

142
00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:06,510
will always start
with such a leap.

143
00:12:06,760 --> 00:12:08,716
And in order to be able to make it,

144
00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:13,909
you have to put aside the fear of failing
and the desire of succeeding.

145
00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:18,358
You have to do these things
completely purely without fear, without desire.

146
00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:21,353
Because things that we do
without lust of result,

147
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:24,319
are the purest actions
that we shall ever take.

148
00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:30,278
I originally, having delusions
of adequacy as an artist,

149
00:12:31,640 --> 00:12:35,553
had both drawn and written
some strips

150
00:12:35,800 --> 00:12:38,712
for one of the music papers
and for a local paper.

151
00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:42,032
After a couple of years I'd realized
that I could not draw well enough

152
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or fast enough
to ever make any kind of career from this

153
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and so had started

154
00:12:47,680 --> 00:12:53,232
to look at the possibilities of actually
writing comic strips for other people to draw.

155
00:12:54,360 --> 00:13:00,629
This had landed me a couple of early jobs
at places like 2000 AD

156
00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:05,590
and the British Doctor Who monthly and weekly
that were published around that time.

157
00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:09,630
I learned my craft doing very short stories,
3 or 4 pages each,

158
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:12,434
which is an excellent way
to learn writing of any sort,

159
00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:16,194
progressed to doing a couple of series

160
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where I'd gotten a little more say
in the nature of the material

161
00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:24,672
and was able to take more chances,
to be a bit more experimental.

162
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And these started to win awards in Britain,

163
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which impressed
the Americans no end.

164
00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:39,079
The Americans tend to think
that every award is an Oscar

165
00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:42,158
and didn't realize
that the comic industry awards

166
00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:47,315
are all voted for by 30 people in anoraks
with dreadful social lives.

167
00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:50,036
And so as far as they were concerned,

168
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if I was an award winner
then I was an English genius.

169
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:56,909
And so they brain drained me to America

170
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and set me to working on
the DC comics Swamp Thing title,

171
00:14:02,920 --> 00:14:05,480
which caused a bit of a stir

172
00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:13,508
and at least made DC trust me enough
to give me other projects,

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00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:17,070
again allowing me more or less
to write whatever I felt like writing.

174
00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:21,078
This lead to Watchmen
in the middle 80s

175
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:25,758
and that was one of the books

176
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that was responsible for
the ridiculous blizzard of publicity

177
00:14:30,240 --> 00:14:33,152
that comic books or graphic novels

178
00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:37,518
as somebody in the marketing department
had decided by then that they should be called,

179
00:14:37,880 --> 00:14:39,313
became popular.

180
00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:45,519
I got into the swing of my writing career
in the early 1980s

181
00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:49,196
which was a very overcast time politically.

182
00:14:49,640 --> 00:14:53,553
Most of the liberal world was watching
in horror at the inexorable rise

183
00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:57,190
of the Reagan-Thatcher
right wing fuck-buddy coalition.

184
00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:01,319
At the same time we had
elements of fascism starting

185
00:15:01,560 --> 00:15:04,757
to make themselves prevalent
upon the streets of Britain

186
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:06,831
with the rise of the National Front

187
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:10,193
and all in all things
were looking fairly bleak.

188
00:15:10,920 --> 00:15:16,756
I decided that if I wanted to write
about this grim present,

189
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:18,911
the best way to do it,

190
00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:21,588
was in the form of a story
set in the future,

191
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:24,598
which is by no means a new trend.

192
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:28,719
Most dystopian science fiction
is not actually about the future,

193
00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:31,235
it s about the times
in which it was written.

194
00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:35,831
And the script that I came up with,
V for Vendetta was no exception.

195
00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:39,278
This was set in what at the time

196
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:43,832
seemed an unreachably distant period
in the future which was 1997

197
00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:50,874
and Britain had been taken over
by a coalition of fascist groups,

198
00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:56,949
with a very Romantic anarchist adventurer
set in opposition against that.

199
00:15:57,200 --> 00:15:59,953
To get over the idea of fascism,

200
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:05,069
I needed some symbol
that would convince the readers

201
00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:08,153
that they were looking
at a fascist police state.

202
00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:10,870
The thing that I finally settled upon

203
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:16,717
was the idea of security cameras
mounted upon every street corner

204
00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:18,797
and watching every move.

205
00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:22,431
I figured that looks pretty much
like fascism in action

206
00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:27,430
and the readers were
equally impressed,

207
00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:32,830
and apparently so were government figures
who must've been reading it at that time

208
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:37,278
and decided that security cameras
on every corner of the metropolis

209
00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:42,076
was indeed just what
we needed for the late 1990s.

210
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:52,355
Good evening London, it's 9 o'clock
and this is the Voice of Fate,

211
00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:56,116
broadcasting on 275 and 285
in the medium wave.

212
00:16:56,560 --> 00:16:59,154
It is the 5th of the 11th, 1997.

213
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:02,319
The people of London are advised
that the Brixton and Streatham areas

214
00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:04,829
are quarantine zones as of today.

215
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:09,517
It is suggested that these areas be avoided
for reasons of health and safety.

216
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:13,710
Police raided 17 homes
in the Birmingham area earlier this morning,

217
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:16,679
uncovering what is believed to be
a major terrorist ring.

218
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:21,193
20 people, 8 of them women
are currently in detention awaiting trial.

219
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:27,596
Queen Zara today appeared at the opening
of a new waste reclamation plant in Plaistow.

220
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:31,799
This was the Queen's first public appearance
since her 16th birthday in June.

221
00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:34,390
The Queen was wearing
a suit of peach silk

222
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:37,358
created specially for the occasion
by the royal couturiers.

223
00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:31,480
Watchmen also grew out of the politically
shadowy landscape of the 1980s,

224
00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:36,471
when the cold war was at probably
at its hottest in 20 or 30 years,

225
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:41,556
and when nuclear destruction
suddenly seemed a very real possibility.

226
00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:46,552
Watchmen used the clich�s

227
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:49,792
of the superhero format

228
00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:56,394
to try and discuss notions of power,
and responsibility

229
00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,837
in an increasingly complex world.

230
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:07,196
We treated these fairly ridiculous
superhuman characters

231
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:10,437
as more human than super.

232
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:14,192
We were using them as symbols

233
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:19,599
of different kinds of ordinary human beings,
rather than as different super beings.

234
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:24,918
I think there were probably
quite a few things about Watchmen

235
00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,993
that chimed well with the times,

236
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:32,389
but to me perhaps the most important
was the actual storytelling,

237
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:36,794
where the world that was presented
didn't really hang together

238
00:19:37,360 --> 00:19:40,238
in terms of linear cause and effect.

239
00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:46,238
But was instead seen as some massively complex
simultaneous event

240
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:51,675
with connections made
of coincidence, synchronicity

241
00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:56,798
and I think that it was
this world-view, if anything,

242
00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:01,108
that resonated with an audience

243
00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:05,108
that had realized
that their previous view of the world

244
00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:08,198
was not adequate for the complexities

245
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,629
of this shadowy and scary new world
that we were entering into.

246
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:15,880
I think that Watchmen
if it offered anything,

247
00:20:16,360 --> 00:20:22,799
offered new possibilities as to how
we perceive the environment surrounding us

248
00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:27,352
and the interactions and relationships
of the people within it.

249
00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:32,151
RORSCHACH'S JOURNAL,

250
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:36,634
October 12th 1985:

251
00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:40,918
Dog carcass in alley
this morning,

252
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:45,996
tire tread on burst stomach.
This city is afraid of me.

253
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:49,917
I have seen it's true face.

254
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:55,830
The streets are extended gutters
and the gutters are full of blood

255
00:20:56,080 --> 00:21:02,189
and when the drains finally scab over,
all the vermin will drown.

256
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:08,631
The accumulated filth
of all their sex and murder

257
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:12,111
will foam up about their waists

258
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:17,030
and all the whores and politicians
will look up and shout "save us!"

259
00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:23,155
And I'll look down and whisper no.

260
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:29,549
Stood in firelight,

261
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:35,836
sweltering bloodstain on chest
like map of violent new continent.

262
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:39,157
Felt cleansed,

263
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:43,349
felt dark planet
turn under my feet

264
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:48,998
and knew what cats know that makes
them scream like babies in the night.

265
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:55,518
Looked at sky through smoke
heavy with human fat,

266
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:58,674
and God was not there.

267
00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:06,755
The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever
and we are alone.

268
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:14,113
This rudderless world is not shaped
by vague metaphysical forces,

269
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:19,954
it is not God who kills the children,
not fate that butchers them

270
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:24,955
or destiny that feeds them
to the dogs.

271
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:27,357
It's us.

272
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:30,833
Only us...

273
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:39,639
Whenever anybody talks
about comics,

274
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:43,998
they usually make a great deal of the similarities
between comics and film.

275
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:48,918
And while I agree that a comic creator
who understands cinematic techniques

276
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,516
will probably be a better creator
than one who doesn't,

277
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:57,915
I feel that if we only see comics
in relationship to movies,

278
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:02,598
than the best that they will ever be
are films that do not move.

279
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:07,558
I'd found it in the mid '80s
preferable to try and concentrate

280
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:10,997
upon on those things
that only comics could achieve.

281
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:15,270
The way in which a tremendous
amount of information

282
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:19,513
could be included visually
in every panel,

283
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,957
the juxtapositions between
what a character was saying

284
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:25,953
and what the image
that the reader was looking at would be.

285
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:31,158
So in a sense, I suppose that you could say
that that most of my work

286
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:35,353
from the '80s onwards,
was more or less designed to be unfilmable.

287
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:38,393
Which is what had to explain
to Terry Gilliam,

288
00:23:39,120 --> 00:23:44,069
when he was originally selected
as the director

289
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:49,669
on the touted Watchmen movie,
that was being discussed at that time.

290
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:56,434
I realized that I was becoming a celebrity,
which was nothing I'd ever expected,

291
00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:58,232
given that comic writer was

292
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:02,513
the most obscure profession in the world
when I'd actually entered the job.

293
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,593
The thing about fame is that fame

294
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:11,072
in its current sense had not really
existed before the 20th century.

295
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,713
Back in previous eras even if you were
very very well known,

296
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,995
that would perhaps be amongst
a thousand people at most

297
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,435
if you were a pope or somebody.

298
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:24,513
In the 20th century however,

299
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:28,919
with these massive surges
in communication,

300
00:24:29,360 --> 00:24:31,396
suddenly a different sort of fame
was possible.

301
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:37,718
And I tend to think that what fame
has done, it has replaced the sea

302
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:43,395
as the element of choice of adventure

303
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:45,879
for young people.

304
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:49,113
If you were a dashing young man
in the 19th century

305
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:50,799
you would probably want
to run away to sea,

306
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,110
just as in the 20th century

307
00:24:54,360 --> 00:24:57,909
you might decide that you want
to run away and form a pop band.

308
00:24:59,360 --> 00:25:03,114
The difference is that n the 19th century
before running away to sea,

309
00:25:03,360 --> 00:25:06,352
you would have at least some understanding
of what the element was

310
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:10,195
that you were dealing with and you would
have perhaps say learned to swim.

311
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:16,118
The thing is that there is no manual
for how to cope with fame,

312
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:21,470
so you'll get some otherwise likeable
young person

313
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:25,913
who has done one good comic book,
one good film, one good record,

314
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,120
who is suddenly told
that they are a genius

315
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:31,437
and who believes it

316
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:36,037
and who runs out sort of laughing
and splashing into the billows of celebrity

317
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,353
and whose heroine sodden corpse
is washed up a few weeks later

318
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:42,795
in the shallows of the tabloid.

319
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,957
I'd never signed up to be a celebrity

320
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:55,200
and I came to the realization that it was
nothing that I was very comfortable with.

321
00:25:55,440 --> 00:26:00,673
I realized that celebrities are
a kind of an industry, there a kind of a crop.

322
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:03,671
Media moguls
like Rupert Murdoch

323
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:05,675
or people who run the big networks,

324
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,354
they need a constant stream
of celebrities

325
00:26:09,120 --> 00:26:13,955
to fill the column space in their magazines,
to fill time upon their TV shows

326
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:16,720
and because celebrities
tend to burn out quickly

327
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:19,150
you have to constantly
create new ones.

328
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:23,439
And I really didn't feel
I wanted to be part of that process

329
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,595
and so I withdrew to the relative
obscurity of Northampton.

330
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:42,839
On my fortieth birthday,

331
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:48,717
rather than merely bore my friends
by having anything as mundane as a mid-life crisis

332
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:51,590
I decided it might actually
be more interesting

333
00:26:52,120 --> 00:26:55,317
to actually terrify them
by going completely mad

334
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:57,909
and declaring myself a magician.

335
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,194
This had been something
coming for a while,

336
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:06,275
it seemed to be a logical end step
in my career as a writer

337
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:11,114
and the problem is that with magic,

338
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,914
being in many respects
a science of language,

339
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,953
you have to be very careful
of what you say.

340
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:22,793
Because if you suddenly
declare yourself to be a magician

341
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,275
without any knowledge
of what that entails,

342
00:27:26,120 --> 00:27:30,318
then one day you are likely
to wake up

343
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,711
and to discover that is exactly
what you are.

344
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:41,639
There is some confusion
as to what magic actually is.

345
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:43,791
I think this can be cleared up.

346
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:48,391
If you just look at the very earliest
descriptions of magic.

347
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:53,675
Magic in its earliest form
is often referred to as "the art".

348
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:56,156
I believe that this is completely literal,

349
00:27:56,360 --> 00:28:01,354
I believe that magic is art
and that art, whether that'd be writing,

350
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,275
music, sculpture or any other form
is literally magic.

351
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:12,515
Art is, like magic,
the science of manipulating symbols,

352
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:17,158
words or images
to achieve changes in consciousness.

353
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,149
The very language of magic

354
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:25,474
seems to be talking as much about writing or art
as it is about supernatural events.

355
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,195
A grimmoir for example,
the book of spells

356
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,635
is simply a fancy way
of saying grammar.

357
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:34,431
Indeed, to cast a spell

358
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:40,717
is simply to spell, to manipulate words,
to change people's consciousness.

359
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:45,438
And I believe this is why an artist or writer

360
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:50,790
is the closest thing in the contemporary world
that you are likely to see to a shaman.

361
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:04,272
I believe all culture
must have arisen from cult.

362
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,153
Originally, all of the facets of our culture,

363
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:13,115
whether they'd be in the arts or the sciences
were the province of the shaman.

364
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,992
The fact that in present times,

365
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,314
this magical power has degenerated

366
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:29,518
to the level of cheap entertainment
and manipulation

367
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,676
is I think a tragedy.

368
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:41,471
At the moment the people
who are using shamanism and magic

369
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,114
to shape our culture
are advertisers.

370
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,436
Rather than try to wake people up

371
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:52,188
their shamanism is used as an opiate
to tranquillize people,

372
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:54,874
to make people more manipulable.

373
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,473
Their magic box of television,

374
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,439
and by their magic words, their jingles

375
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:06,595
can cause everybody in the country
to be thinking the same words

376
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:11,072
and have the same banal thoughts
all at exactly the same moment.

377
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:26,194
In all of magic, there is an incredibly
large linguistic component.

378
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,551
The Bardic tradition of magic

379
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,557
would place a bard

380
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:35,995
as being much higher

381
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,079
and more fearsome than a magician.

382
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:41,478
A magician might curse you.

383
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,558
That might make your hands
lay funny

384
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:48,110
or you might have a child
born with a club foot.

385
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:55,073
If a bard were to place not a curse
upon you, but a satire,

386
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:57,718
then that could destroy you.

387
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:00,392
If it was a clever satire,

388
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:07,070
it might not just destroy you in the eyes
of your associates,

389
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,712
it would destroy you
in the eyes of your family.

390
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:13,874
It would destroy you in your own eyes.

391
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,831
And if it was a finely worded and clever satire

392
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:22,029
that might be survive and be remembered
for decades, even centuries,

393
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,110
then years after you were dead

394
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:29,555
people still might be reading it
and laughing at you

395
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,234
and your wretchedness
and your absurdity.

396
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:38,830
Writers and people
who had command of words

397
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:41,795
were respected and feared

398
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,315
as people who manipulated magic.

399
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:50,519
In latter times I think that artists and writers
have allowed themselves to be sold down the river.

400
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,678
They have accepted the prevailing belief

401
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:58,630
that art, that writing are merely
forms of entertainment.

402
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:03,115
They're not seen as transformative forces

403
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:07,588
that can change a human being,
that can change a society.

404
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,796
They are seen as simple entertainment,

405
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:15,397
things with which we can fill 20 minutes,
half an hour

406
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:16,993
while we're waiting to die.

407
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:24,194
It is not the job of artists
to give the audience what the audience want.

408
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:29,238
If the audience knew what they needed,

409
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,873
then they wouldn't be the audience.
They would be the artist.

410
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:38,438
It is the job of artists to give
the audience what they need.

411
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:50,518
My career as a magician
continues to evolve.

412
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,476
Since I to a certain degree believe

413
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:56,916
art and magic to be interchangeable,

414
00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:58,798
it'd only seemed natural

415
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:05,236
that art should be the means
by which I express magical ideas.

416
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:10,672
This has found its way into my prose writing,

417
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:13,749
in works such as Voice of the Fire

418
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:18,916
and probably most visibly

419
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:22,750
has found its way into the performance pieces

420
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:27,910
that I've done at various locations
over the past 8 years.

421
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,157
Beautiful little psychedelic artefacts
in their own right,

422
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:36,394
which actually capture
the kind of narrative journey

423
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,998
that we've tried to take the readers on
as part of these performances,

424
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,677
to overwhelm the sensibilities of the audience,

425
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:47,949
to tip them over

426
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,154
into a kind of psychedelic state,

427
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:57,839
where we can hopefully
actually change their consciousness

428
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:02,079
and direct it to different places,
different levels,

429
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,759
hopefully into new
and hopefully magical spaces.

430
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:19,353
When we are doing the will
of our true Self,

431
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:25,751
we are inevitably doing
the will of the universe.

432
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,639
In magic these are seen
as indistinguishable,

433
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:34,434
that every human soul
is in fact one human soul.

434
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:36,836
It is the soul of the universe itself

435
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,711
and as long as you are doing
the will of the universe,

436
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,073
then it is impossible to do anything wrong.

437
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:50,073
Murder is something which is

438
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,393
intricately connected with society
in a number of ways.

439
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:56,758
And with From Hell,

440
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:02,275
what we wanted to do was not so much
to create a "whodunit,"

441
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,118
as to create something which
asked "what happened"

442
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:10,878
where we could trace all of these
complex threads

443
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:13,153
from the heart of the murder

444
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:16,717
and see what kind of areas
they let us into.

445
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:22,309
Areas of history, occultism,
mythology, architecture,

446
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:24,958
social considerations.

447
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:27,397
All of these played a part

448
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:31,628
upon shaping the world
that the crimes happened in

449
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:34,960
and it seemed to me to be important

450
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:39,517
to investigate
all of those possibilities,

451
00:35:39,720 --> 00:35:43,508
to try and create a map of this event

452
00:35:44,240 --> 00:35:45,719
that included

453
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,916
all of those strange foreign areas

454
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:53,908
that aren't generally included
when one considers a murder.

455
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,588
I was not concerned with "whodunit,"

456
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,428
I was concerned with what happened,

457
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:05,196
I was concerned with the "whydunit"
aspects of the thing.

458
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:16,031
The one place in which Gods
and demons inarguably exist

459
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:18,911
is in the human mind

460
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,996
where they are real in
all their grandeur and monstrosity.

461
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,833
Much of magic as I understand it
in the Western occult tradition

462
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,955
is the search for the Self,
with a capital S.

463
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,031
This is understood
as being the Great Work,

464
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:43,030
as being the gold
that alchemists sought,

465
00:36:43,240 --> 00:36:45,310
as being the Will, the Soul,

466
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:50,270
the thing that we have inside us that is
behind the intellect, the body, the dreams.

467
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,952
The inner dynamo of us if you like.

468
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:01,677
Now this is the single most important thing

469
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:03,836
that we can ever attain,

470
00:37:04,720 --> 00:37:07,632
the knowledge of our own Self.

471
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:13,351
And yet there are a frightening
amount of people

472
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:20,993
who seem to have the urge
not just to ignore the Self,

473
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:25,714
but actually seem to have the urge

474
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,992
to obliterate themselves.

475
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,273
This is horrific,

476
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:38,239
but you can almost understand

477
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:45,597
the desire to simply wipe out

478
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:48,318
that awareness,

479
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,878
because it's too much of a responsibility

480
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:59,830
to actually posses such a thing as a Soul,
such a precious thing,

481
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,195
what if you break it,
what if you lose it.

482
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:09,911
Might it not be best to anaesthetize it,
to deaden it, to destroy it,

483
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:14,836
to not have to live with the pain

484
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:20,476
of struggling towards it
and trying to keep it pure.

485
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:28,192
I think that the way that people
immerse themselves in alcohol,

486
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:30,835
in drugs, in television,

487
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:37,715
in any of the addictions
that our culture throws up

488
00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:43,597
can be seen as a deliberate attempt

489
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:49,272
to destroy any connection

490
00:38:50,240 --> 00:38:53,198
between themselves

491
00:38:54,120 --> 00:39:01,390
and the responsibility of accepting
and owning a higher Self

492
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:04,431
and then having to maintain it.

493
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,955
Back when I was doing Swamp Thing,
which was ostensibly a horror comic,

494
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,594
I found that it wasn't really effective

495
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:20,555
to just sort of swamp the readers
in horror every issue.

496
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,309
You needed to do other things

497
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:29,072
that would alleviate the repetitive
qualities of the horror

498
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,311
and to make it more
than a one note strip.

499
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:37,592
I decided that what might be useful

500
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:44,632
is to try and link up the elements of fantasy
horror from our imaginations,

501
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,151
werewolves, vampires,
zombies and the like

502
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:49,479
with real life horrors.

503
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,515
Racism, sexism, pollution,
the collapse of the environment

504
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,193
and thus lend
these social issues

505
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:02,156
some of the weight
that fantasy fiction could offer.

506
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:06,032
Most of us have little to fear
from vampires.

507
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:09,558
And yet we live in cultures

508
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:11,995
that are every bit as dangerous

509
00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:16,793
despite the non-existence
of terrible supernatural forces.

510
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,037
One of things that I did

511
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:27,391
was a strip in which we explored
the erotic possibilities of Swamp Thing.

512
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:34,598
I figured that if you could fill comic book
after comic book every month with fights,

513
00:40:35,240 --> 00:40:39,119
then surely you should be able to fill
at least one comic book

514
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:42,830
with a sexual act, surely that was
as interesting as a fight was.

515
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:46,428
The book was very well received

516
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:53,552
and it led to me thinking seriously
about the possibilities of erotica

517
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,314
or as I prefer to call it pornography,

518
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,829
because I think that the difference
between the two words

519
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,119
is largely dependent upon
the income bracket of the reader.

520
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,315
In the 90s

521
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:28,030
I met up with Melinda Gebbie

522
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:33,189
and we decided
that we'd like to work upon

523
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:37,752
a major piece of erotic fiction together,

524
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:43,509
which has resulted in
the forthcoming Lost Girls.

525
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:49,310
And this entire drama is being played out
against the background of Europe

526
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,671
and specifically Austria in 1913,

527
00:42:53,360 --> 00:43:00,710
when everything is gearing up
towards the exact anti-thesis of sex.

528
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:05,275
It's gearing up towards what humans do

529
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,394
when they don't put their energies into sex.

530
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:10,911
Which is kill each other.

531
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:15,674
That the healthy sexual drive

532
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,390
that is seizing most young men

533
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:24,039
when they're in their teens

534
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,714
is perverted by older men,

535
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,880
who perhaps have lost
some of their sexual drive

536
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:33,197
and all of that sexual energy

537
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:37,553
gets shipped over
to somewhere like Flanders

538
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:41,869
and is perverted into killing
other young men.

539
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,794
Energy that should be going into
something honest like fucking

540
00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:51,633
is instead diverted into
something appalling like killing.

541
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:57,713
There is a brain-penis blood ratio

542
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:03,311
that tends to get in the way
of writing intelligent pornography.

543
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:07,874
If it becomes too intelligent
all the blood rushes through your brain,

544
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:09,709
you lose your erection.

545
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,191
If it becomes too sexually exciting

546
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:19,236
you are no longer in any state
to appreciate it's aesthetic value.

547
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:21,511
It is a difficult balancing act.

548
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:26,313
My thoughts upon pornography

549
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:32,477
tend to revolve around the fact
that while few of us are zombies,

550
00:44:32,720 --> 00:44:34,711
detectives, cowboys
or spacemen,

551
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:38,795
there are an infinite number of books

552
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:45,076
that are recounting the stories
of those lifestyles.

553
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,829
However, all of us have some sort
of feelings or opinions about sex.

554
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,111
And yet the only art form

555
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:57,117
which in any way is able
to discuss sex or depict sex

556
00:44:57,480 --> 00:44:58,993
is this grubby despised

557
00:44:59,240 --> 00:45:02,915
under-the-counter art form
which has absolutely no standards.

558
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:08,308
This was what Lost Girls was intended
as a remedy for.

559
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:12,872
That there is no reason
why a horny piece of literature

560
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:14,678
that is purely about sex

561
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:17,514
could not be as beautiful, as meaningful

562
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:21,118
and have as absorbing characters

563
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:23,038
as any other piece of fiction.

564
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:30,910
I've been looking at the kind of
the history of magical thinking

565
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:33,636
and where it starts to go wrong.

566
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:39,038
And for my money where it starts
to go wrong is monotheism.

567
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:41,511
I mean if you look at the history of magic,

568
00:45:42,240 --> 00:45:46,597
you've got it's origins in the caves.

569
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:50,230
You've got it's origins in shamanism,

570
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:52,034
in animism,

571
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:56,796
in a belief that everything around you,
every tree, every rock, every animal

572
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:00,593
was inhabited by some sort of essence,

573
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,753
some sort of spirit that could perhaps
be communicated with.

574
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,232
You would have had some
central shaman or visionary

575
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,079
who would've been responsible for channelling

576
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,189
ideas that were useful to survival.

577
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:21,516
By the time you reach
the classical civilizations

578
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:25,150
you can see that this has formalized
to a degree.

579
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,877
The shaman was acting purely
as an intermediary

580
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:31,680
between the spirits and people.

581
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:39,111
He was in his position in the village or community
I should imagine very much like a spiritual plumber.

582
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,717
You know, that people in the group
would have had their own roles.

583
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:45,309
The person who was best at hunting
would've been a hunter,

584
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,314
the person who was best at talking to the spirits,

585
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:52,389
perhaps because he or she was a bit crazy,

586
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,912
a bit detached
from our normal material world,

587
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:58,628
then they would've been the shaman.

588
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:03,157
And they would not have been masters
of a secret craft,

589
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:09,074
they would've simply been dispensing
their information throughout the community,

590
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,914
because it was believed
to be helpful to the community.

591
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:17,517
When you get the actual
classical cultures emerging,

592
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:22,318
this has been formalized so that
you've now got pantheons of gods.

593
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,910
And each of those gods will have a priest cast

594
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,796
that will act to certain degree as intermediaries

595
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:34,476
who will instruct you in the worship of that god.

596
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:39,558
So the relationship between
humans and their gods,

597
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:41,955
which could be seen

598
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,754
as the relationship between humans
and their highest selves,

599
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:49,638
that was still a very direct one.

600
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:54,036
When Christianity comes in,
when monotheism comes in,

601
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,713
then all of a sudden
you've got a priest cast

602
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:02,431
moving in between the worshipper
and the object of worship.

603
00:48:03,240 --> 00:48:05,549
You've got a priest cast becoming

604
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:08,633
a kind of spiritual middle-management

605
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:16,511
between humanity and
the divine within itself that it is seeking.

606
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,717
You no longer have a direct relationship
with the godhead.

607
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,030
The priests don't really necessarily
have a relationship with the godhead.

608
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:30,110
They just got a book that tells you
about some people who lived a long time ago

609
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,153
who did have a direct relationship
with the godhead.

610
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:34,475
And that's all right.

611
00:48:34,720 --> 00:48:37,678
You don't need to have miraculous visions,

612
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:41,390
you don't need
to have gods talking to you.

613
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:45,076
In fact if you do have any of that stuff,
you're probably insane,

614
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,675
you know. In the modern world
that stuff doesn't happen.

615
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,678
The only people who are allowed
to talk to gods,

616
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,357
and in a very kind of one-sided way,
are priests.

617
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:04,554
Monotheism is to me
a great simplification.

618
00:49:06,720 --> 00:49:09,598
I mean the Quabala has a great
multiplicity of gods,

619
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:13,994
but at the very top of the Cabalistic
diagram - the tree of life - 

620
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,791
you have this one sphere
that is absolute God.

621
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:23,436
The Monad.
Something that is indivisible, you know.

622
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,078
And all of the other gods,

623
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:30,633
and indeed everything else in the universe
is a kind of emanation of that God.

624
00:49:31,720 --> 00:49:36,191
Now, that's fine.
But it's when you suggest

625
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,950
that there is only that one God,

626
00:49:40,240 --> 00:49:45,314
at this kind of unreachable height
above humanity

627
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:47,234
and there is nothing in between,

628
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:51,555
you're limiting and simplifying
the thing.

629
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:53,677
I mean, I tend to think of paganism

630
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:58,113
as a kind of alphabet, as a language.

631
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:03,991
It's like all of the Gods
are letters in that language,

632
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:06,078
they express nuances,

633
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:09,395
shades of sort of meaning

634
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:13,076
or certain subtleties of ideas.

635
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:18,959
Whereas monotheism is just one vowel,
and it's just something like: Oooouh.

636
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:21,112
It's this monkey sound.

637
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:23,671
You can almost imagine the Gods

638
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:28,550
becoming frustrated, contemptuous.

639
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:34,559
That with all this richness of
spiritual concepts that are available,

640
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:40,754
why reduce it to one plaintiff single note

641
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:43,560
that the utterer does not even understand.

642
00:50:50,240 --> 00:50:53,710
The alchemists had two components
to their philosophy.

643
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,111
These were the principles of
Solve et Coagula.

644
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:01,679
Solve was basically the equivalent of analysis,

645
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:05,072
it was taking things apart
to see how they worked.

646
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:08,637
Coagula was basically synthesis,

647
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:13,113
it was trying to put the disassembled pieces
back together,

648
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:15,920
so that they worked more efficiently.

649
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:21,429
These are two very important principles

650
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:26,032
which can be applied
to almost anything in culture.

651
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,436
There has recently in literature for example

652
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,990
been a wave of post-modernism,
deconstructionism.

653
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:36,316
This is Solve.

654
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:41,912
Perhaps it is time in the arts
for a little more Coagula.

655
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:43,838
Having deconstructed everything,

656
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:47,470
perhaps we really should be starting to
think about putting everything back together.

657
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:54,989
Spiritualism was the natural state

658
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:59,996
of human thinking
up until the Renaissance

659
00:52:00,240 --> 00:52:04,074
and the subsequent age of reason
that grew out of it.

660
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:09,278
Our original way of seeing the world

661
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:13,634
was as a place entirely inhabited by spirits,

662
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:16,474
where everything had its indwelling essence,

663
00:52:16,720 --> 00:52:20,599
where everything was in some sense
sacred, including ourselves.

664
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:23,915
The age of reason changed all that.

665
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:30,112
While it's inarguable that Reason
brought many great benefits

666
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:33,909
and was a necessary stage
of our development,

667
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:38,275
unfortunately this lead to materialism,

668
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:41,992
where the physical material world

669
00:52:42,240 --> 00:52:45,277
was seen as the be-all
and end-all of existence,

670
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,229
where inevitably we were seen as creature
that had no spiritual dimensions,

671
00:52:49,720 --> 00:52:54,191
that had no souls, living in a soulless
universe of dead matter.

672
00:52:58,040 --> 00:53:03,717
In the mid 1980s I was asked by an American
legal institution known as the Christic Institute,

673
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:08,988
to compile a comic book
which would detail the murky history of the CIA

674
00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:11,549
from the end of the 2nd World War
to the present day.

675
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:15,589
Covering things such as
the heroine smuggling during the Vietnam War,

676
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:18,519
the cocaine smuggling during the war
in Central America,

677
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:21,228
the Kennedy assassination
and other highlights.

678
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,509
What I learned during the frankly
horrifying research

679
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:27,910
was that I had to slug through
to accomplish this,

680
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:30,954
was that yes
there is a conspiracy,

681
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:35,990
in fact there are a great number of conspiracies
that are all tripping each other up.

682
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:37,394
And all of those conspiracies

683
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:42,475
are run by paranoid fantasists
and ham-fisted clowns.

684
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:48,876
If you are on a list targeted by the C.I.A.,

685
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:52,356
you really have nothing to worry about.

686
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:55,558
If however, you have a name similar

687
00:53:56,280 --> 00:54:01,400
to somebody on a list targeted
by the C.I.A. then you are dead.

688
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:06,636
The main thing that I learned
about conspiracy theory

689
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:11,995
is that conspiracy theorists actually
believe in a conspiracy

690
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:14,111
because that is more comforting.

691
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:17,273
The truth of the world is that it is chaotic.

692
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:22,391
The truth is, that it is not the Jewish
banking conspiracy

693
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:27,874
or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids
from another dimension that is in control.

694
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:29,837
The truth is far more frightening,

695
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:33,868
nobody is in control.
The world s rudderless...

696
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:49,597
The substance that has
most effect upon our culture

697
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:52,479
and upon our lives
is completely invisible

698
00:54:52,720 --> 00:54:56,633
We can only see its effects.
This substance is information.

699
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:10,831
Science started out as
an off-shoot of magic.

700
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:15,599
The two became completely
divorced from each other and bitter enemies.

701
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:20,277
Although I tend to think
that at the present moment

702
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:23,438
the two are growing back
together again.

703
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:27,080
I was reading recently

704
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:31,150
that people at the cutting edge of
quantum physics

705
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:37,152
believe that information is
a "super weird substance"

706
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:39,715
to quote the actual phraseology,

707
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:42,669
which underlies
everything in the universe,

708
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:44,757
which is more fundamental than gravity

709
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:47,548
or electro-magnetism
or the two nuclear forces.

710
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,918
This would tend to suggest

711
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:56,837
that our entire physical universe
is the secondary by-product

712
00:55:57,240 --> 00:55:59,151
of a primal information.

713
00:55:59,720 --> 00:56:03,269
Or to put it in more
magical acceptable terms:

714
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:05,954
"In the beginning,
there was the word"...

715
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:15,799
As I understand the theory
of period information doubling,

716
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:20,388
this states that if we take one
period of human information

717
00:56:20,640 --> 00:56:23,598
as being the time between the invention
of the first hand axe,

718
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:27,958
say around 50,000 BC and 1 AD,

719
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:33,788
then this is one period of human information
and we can measure it

720
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:37,834
by how many human inventions
we came up during that time.

721
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:43,391
Then we see how long it takes
for us to have twice as many inventions.

722
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:46,754
This means that human information has doubled.

723
00:56:47,200 --> 00:56:50,749
As it turns out, after the first 50,000 year period,

724
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,714
the second period is about 1500 years,

725
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:55,911
say around the time of the Renaissance.

726
00:56:56,680 --> 00:56:59,114
By then we have twice as much information.

727
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:03,908
To double again, human information
took a couple of hundred years.

728
00:57:04,720 --> 00:57:06,073
The period speeds up,

729
00:57:06,720 --> 00:57:10,474
between 1960 and 1970
human information doubled.

730
00:57:11,320 --> 00:57:14,517
As I understand it,
at the last count human information

731
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:17,513
was doubling around every 18 months.

732
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:22,871
Further to this, there is a point
somewhere around 2015

733
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:27,478
when human information is doubling
every thousandth of a second.

734
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:30,709
This means that in each thousandth of a second

735
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:33,355
we will have accumulated more information

736
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:37,149
than we have
in the entire previous history of the world.

737
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:40,638
At this point I believe
that all bets are off.

738
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:47,037
I cannot imagine the kind of culture that might
exist after such a flashpoint of knowledge.

739
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:52,480
I believe that our culture would probably
move into a completely different state,

740
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:54,910
would move past the boiling point,

741
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:58,312
from a fluid culture
to a culture of steam.

742
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:10,155
Originally,

743
00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:14,559
there was only one science of existence.

744
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:16,716
Our entire world view was magical.

745
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:20,636
Everything we did,
everything that happened in the world

746
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:24,989
had a kind of shamanic,
magical significance.

747
00:58:25,360 --> 00:58:29,194
If you look at the very earliest cultures,

748
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:34,112
some of them are still extent upon the planet,
the aboriginal cultures,

749
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:38,358
most of their languages only have one tense.

750
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:44,875
Everything is subsumed within the present.

751
00:58:46,120 --> 00:58:48,714
They can talk about things that happened

752
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:52,955
and things that haven't happened yet,
but will happen in the future,

753
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:55,236
but they talk about them
in the present tense.

754
00:58:57,760 --> 00:59:04,313
Now it seems that not only
have we split up our existence,

755
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:07,876
our study of existence
into all of these different areas,

756
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:11,390
but we've also subdivided
our notion of time

757
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:13,589
into different zones.

758
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:17,398
Whereas once,
there was this great eternal present,

759
00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:24,755
which I assume to be the kind of constant Now
that animals exist in for example.

760
00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:31,950
But we as conscious individuals

761
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:39,788
have as a species adapted
this different notion of time,

762
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:47,637
where we almost see time
as a bead on a wire.

763
00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:50,038
That the now

764
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:57,675
is just this constantly moving,
tiny little moment that we're all in

765
00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:03,275
that is sliding inexorably along a wire
from past to future.

766
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:08,516
If you look at some of the models
that people like Stephen Hawking

767
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:11,434
have suggested for time,

768
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:15,958
then you find something
which is actually much closer

769
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:22,194
to that primitive apprehension
of how time is structured,

770
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:27,039
than to our rather simplistic
and fatalistic idea

771
01:00:27,240 --> 01:00:29,879
of past, present and future.

772
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:34,033
I believe that Hawking
talks about space-time

773
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:38,832
as a kind of a gigantic,
starry football,

774
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:40,837
a rugby ball if you like.

775
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:43,840
And at one end of it
you have the Big Bang

776
01:00:44,800 --> 01:00:52,434
and at the other end of it everything
comes together again in a big crunch.

777
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:58,514
But, that the whole football
exists all the time.

778
01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:03,516
That there is this gigantic hyper moment
in which everything is occurring.

779
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:06,714
That would mean that it was only
our conscious minds

780
01:01:06,920 --> 01:01:10,520
that were ordering things into past,
present and future.

781
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:16,308
The idea of solid flying saucers
from Alpha Centauri,

782
01:01:16,800 --> 01:01:18,916
coming and visiting us now or any time in the past.

783
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:21,589
This is not a rational idea.

784
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:28,878
And yet, because it involves machinery,

785
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:33,198
warp thrust engines,

786
01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:36,678
or pseudo scientific concepts like that,

787
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:40,598
then we in the West

788
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:44,833
will actually pay it serious attention,

789
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:47,989
as we probably did
with von Danicken.

790
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:53,595
Whereas, spiritual ideas
from other cultures,

791
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:59,434
we will regard them as -
well they're complete non-sense.

792
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:05,676
This is an example of the limitations
of Western thought,

793
01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:09,953
that we believe that we understand
the entire cosmos.

794
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:14,230
But, actually we understand
the insides of our heads.

795
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:19,557
And even then only very poorly.
Was it Niels Bohr, the physicist,

796
01:02:19,840 --> 01:02:26,712
who in his Copenhagen interpretation
of quantum physics,

797
01:02:27,160 --> 01:02:32,996
said that when we talk about or
describe, remote events,

798
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:37,239
whether that be in the furthest stars,

799
01:02:38,080 --> 01:02:43,871
or in the smallest and
most remote quanta,

800
01:02:44,880 --> 01:02:47,519
that all we can ever truly be doing

801
01:02:47,760 --> 01:02:51,799
is talking about ourselves
and our own processes.

802
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:58,240
That all we see is our perceptions,

803
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:01,393
we mistake that for reality.

804
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:05,555
And consequently we tend
to be chauvinistic

805
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:11,711
about our picture of reality
as if that were the only one.

806
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:15,718
Then the only way
that we can look at other cultures

807
01:03:16,640 --> 01:03:19,518
is to imagine that they are deluded

808
01:03:20,120 --> 01:03:22,839
or primitive or just haven't got it yet.

809
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:26,556
That is a way in which we
in terms of information

810
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:29,268
we isolate ourselves terribly.

811
01:03:29,560 --> 01:03:34,714
It's our culture,
kind of insisting upon its own values,

812
01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:37,190
blinds itself

813
01:03:37,440 --> 01:03:41,877
to what might actually be
very useful concepts and ideas,

814
01:03:42,120 --> 01:03:46,159
belonging to other more deeply
rooted cultures.

815
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:51,751
They offered perhaps richer
readings of the world

816
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:55,710
than cold behaviourist science does.

817
01:03:56,400 --> 01:03:59,312
Science cannot talk
about consciousness

818
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:05,351
because science is a thing that
deals entirely with empirical evidence.

819
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:08,592
With things that can be repeated in a laboratory

820
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:12,431
and thoughts
do not come into th is category

821
01:04:13,120 --> 01:04:19,150
Therefore science generally
tends to try to disprove

822
01:04:19,560 --> 01:04:21,596
the existence of consciousness.

823
01:04:21,800 --> 01:04:28,672
They will say that consciousness
is some accident of biology,

824
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:33,755
which is itself based upon chemistry,
which is itself based upon physics

825
01:04:34,000 --> 01:04:36,116
and wholly explicable

826
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:39,875
within a normal
rational scientific framework.

827
01:04:43,240 --> 01:04:47,836
Rupert Sheldrake,
who is a kind of heretical scientist

828
01:04:48,360 --> 01:04:52,751
who put forward the theory of
a morphogenetic field

829
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:57,195
in order to try and understand

830
01:04:57,400 --> 01:05:01,109
some of the spookier effects
of consciousness.

831
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:04,230
I'm probably simplifying it horribly here,

832
01:05:04,440 --> 01:05:07,159
but I think that the basic concept was

833
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:11,839
that once a form has occurred,

834
01:05:12,760 --> 01:05:16,878
whether that be a physical form
or an idea form,

835
01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:24,155
then it is much more likely
and possible for it

836
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:26,991
to occur again.

837
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:33,472
Now Sheldrake says that this is because there is
a kind of what he calls a morpho-genetic field,

838
01:05:33,960 --> 01:05:35,837
linking everything.

839
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:38,998
And that once the idea existed

840
01:05:39,440 --> 01:05:43,797
then it somehow existed
in this morpho-genetic field.

841
01:05:44,200 --> 01:05:48,990
It struck me that this might explain
a lot of things,

842
01:05:49,520 --> 01:05:52,637
about the way the human mind works.

843
01:05:52,840 --> 01:05:55,400
Even things say for example,

844
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:58,718
like the fact that the steam engine

845
01:05:58,960 --> 01:06:03,158
seem to have been invented
by five or six different people

846
01:06:03,320 --> 01:06:05,231
at approximately the same time.

847
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:10,876
After hundreds, thousands years
of the steam engine not being invented,

848
01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:15,199
all of a sudden within the matter
of a couple of weeks, everybody is,

849
01:06:15,560 --> 01:06:17,994
you know,
it's steam engine time.

850
01:06:18,240 --> 01:06:22,791
Everybody is coming up
with an idea of steam propulsion.

851
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:28,717
I mean this is similar

852
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:34,155
to the idea that I put forward of idea space.

853
01:06:34,760 --> 01:06:36,193
A kind of,

854
01:06:36,480 --> 01:06:41,713
a space in which mental events
can be said to occur.

855
01:06:42,280 --> 01:06:46,273
An idea space which is
perhaps universal.

856
01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:49,877
Our individual consciousnesses
have access

857
01:06:50,480 --> 01:06:54,792
to this vast universal space.

858
01:06:55,080 --> 01:06:57,514
Just as we have individual houses,

859
01:06:58,400 --> 01:07:02,598
but the street outside the front door
belongs to everybody.

860
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:05,676
It's almost as if ideas

861
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:09,674
are pre-existing forms within this space.

862
01:07:16,800 --> 01:07:21,920
As human beings we inhabit
two distinct and separate worlds,

863
01:07:22,160 --> 01:07:24,469
two landscapes.

864
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:27,234
We inhabit the physical world,

865
01:07:27,840 --> 01:07:29,831
but at the same time

866
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:37,634
since we can only ever truly experience
our perception of that world,

867
01:07:38,080 --> 01:07:42,039
then it would seem that
we more truly inhabit

868
01:07:42,280 --> 01:07:45,556
a world purely of consciousness and ideas.

869
01:07:46,720 --> 01:07:49,234
It strikes me

870
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:56,030
that the landmasses that might exist
in this mind space

871
01:07:56,400 --> 01:08:01,110
would be composed entirely of ideas,
of concepts.

872
01:08:01,600 --> 01:08:03,477
That instead of continents or islands

873
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:08,316
you might have large
belief systems or philosophies.

874
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:11,393
Marxism might be an island,

875
01:08:11,640 --> 01:08:14,313
Judeo-Chrstian religions

876
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:17,836
might make up another landmass or continent.

877
01:08:19,080 --> 01:08:24,279
Human minds interact,
albeit weakly in limited ways,

878
01:08:25,120 --> 01:08:29,113
with idea space every moment of the day

879
01:08:29,720 --> 01:08:32,951
just in order to carry out our daily lives.

880
01:08:33,480 --> 01:08:36,040
If you want truly unique ideas,

881
01:08:36,280 --> 01:08:38,475
if you're an artist or an inventor

882
01:08:38,680 --> 01:08:41,956
or somebody who deals in unique and fresh ideas

883
01:08:42,200 --> 01:08:45,317
then you will have to plunge
right into the undergrowth,

884
01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:48,114
into the depths of idea space

885
01:08:48,320 --> 01:08:52,871
in order to find those ideas
that have never been spotted before.

886
01:08:53,440 --> 01:08:59,436
If we assume that idea space
or something like it exists,

887
01:08:59,760 --> 01:09:04,151
then we may decide that
we wish to explore that space.

888
01:09:04,480 --> 01:09:08,439
Whether for artistic reasons,
perhaps for scientific reasons

889
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:12,116
or perhaps as magicians, as occultists.

890
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:14,715
Now if we're going to venture

891
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:20,114
into this hypothetical and more or less
entirely unknown territory,

892
01:09:20,400 --> 01:09:22,197
it would seem to only make sense

893
01:09:22,440 --> 01:09:27,150
that we should try and track down route maps

894
01:09:27,400 --> 01:09:31,188
that may have been made
by previous explorers.

895
01:09:31,800 --> 01:09:37,193
Now when you're talking about the territory
of the mind and perhaps the spirit,

896
01:09:37,600 --> 01:09:42,913
the only route maps available
are magic systems from antiquity.

897
01:09:43,120 --> 01:09:47,193
You're talking about systems like the Quabalah,

898
01:09:47,440 --> 01:09:53,310
with its map of every
conceivable human state.

899
01:09:53,760 --> 01:09:57,799
You're talking about systems like Tarot,

900
01:09:58,280 --> 01:10:02,114
a pantheon of archetypal images

901
01:10:02,440 --> 01:10:06,433
that provide the cartography

902
01:10:06,840 --> 01:10:11,789
for a map of the human condition.

903
01:10:22,120 --> 01:10:26,159
Most people find the word Apocalypse,
to be a terrifying concept.

904
01:10:27,000 --> 01:10:31,073
Checked in the dictionary
it means only revelation,

905
01:10:31,480 --> 01:10:35,917
although it obviously has also
come to mean end of the world.

906
01:10:36,560 --> 01:10:39,597
As to what the end of the world means,

907
01:10:39,840 --> 01:10:43,150
I would say that probably depends on
what we mean by world.

908
01:10:43,720 --> 01:10:47,395
I don't think this means the planet,

909
01:10:47,680 --> 01:10:50,752
or even the life forms upon the planet.

910
01:10:51,000 --> 01:10:55,278
I think the world is purely
a construction of ideas,

911
01:10:55,480 --> 01:10:57,596
and not just the physical structures,

912
01:10:58,200 --> 01:11:02,910
but the mental structures,
the ideologies that we've erected,

913
01:11:03,120 --> 01:11:05,554
THAT is what would call the world.

914
01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:08,633
Our political structures,
philosophical structures,

915
01:11:08,880 --> 01:11:11,440
ideological frameworks, economies.

916
01:11:12,200 --> 01:11:15,351
These are actually imaginary things,

917
01:11:16,400 --> 01:11:24,671
and yet that is the framework that
we have built our entire world upon.

918
01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:29,911
It strikes me that a strong enough
wave of information

919
01:11:30,880 --> 01:11:34,270
could completely overturn
and destroy all of that.

920
01:11:35,120 --> 01:11:39,193
A sudden realization that would change
our entire perspective

921
01:11:39,440 --> 01:11:42,352
upon who we are and how we exist.

922
01:11:57,200 --> 01:11:58,918
History is a heat,

923
01:11:59,160 --> 01:12:02,072
it s the heat of accumulated information

924
01:12:02,280 --> 01:12:04,589
and accumulated complexity.

925
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:07,560
As our culture progresses,

926
01:12:07,800 --> 01:12:10,633
we find that we gather
more and more information

927
01:12:10,880 --> 01:12:12,438
and that we slowly start to move

928
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:15,672
almost from a fluid to a vaporous state,

929
01:12:15,920 --> 01:12:18,514
as we approach the ultimate complexity

930
01:12:18,760 --> 01:12:20,876
of a social boiling point.

931
01:12:21,120 --> 01:12:25,079
I believe that our culture
is turning to steam.

932
01:14:58,600 --> 01:15:04,311
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