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THE_SECRET_MASTERS_OF_DESTINY
December 14, 2003
They wrote of the future because they could see
pieces of it, and wanted to be there, they
wanted to live there, but they were blocked by
any route but the path of imagination.
They knew in their hearts that they themselves
were not good enough to bring it about; too
mediocre to have a hope of transforming the
world, they wrote fantasies of personal
transformation; rapid transcendent change into
supermen that could then bring about transcendent
change globally.
They created a literature that's both pathetic
and inspiring; and it transmitted their dreams
(and diseases) to others, some of whom were
better positioned for the slow crawl to sudden
transformation.
Superhero comics are one reflection
of this flame, but they rarely touch
on the second part of the story. It was a great innovation
Superman exists in a New York-like for comics when Alan Moore
metropolis that is not significantly took it one step farther:
different from the real one. once Dr. Manhattan exists,
you are in a new world.
You can take it back
to A.E. van Vogt:
A.E. van Vogt - "Slan" (1940)
Wilma Shirras - "Children of the Atom" (1953)
George O. Smith - "Highways in Hiding" (1956)
A.E. van Vogt - "The World of Null-A" (1945)
Alfred Bester - "The Stars My Destination" (1956)
L. Ron Hubbard - "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental
Healing", an article in Astounding Science Fiction, May, 1950.
Maybe you can go still
There are two different fantasies in play: earlier: "The Shadow"
one is "mutation", the belief that you are radio shows and novels,
a changeling, that you have so little in that co-evolved in the
common with the conventional run of early thirties.
humanity that you're in effect a new
species; a new and -- despite the The power to cloud
schoolyard taunts -- superior species. You men's minds,
must go underground, and seek out your own learned from a
kind. SF fans of the forties called their Yogi in India.
group houses "slan-shacks" (where popular
side-lines included blowing up the basement
with rocketry experiments).
The other fantasy, is the dream of
"self-transformation": there exists some
simple method (a talisman, a technology,
an idea) that properly used can
transform you into a superior being.
Choose wisely who is worthy to be
elevated to your new god-like status.
Humanity is on the verge of a new
beginning.
A.E. van Vogt's "Null-A" books were
obsessed with Korzybski's General
Semantics, and van Vogt also went on
to get involved with Scientology...
and there were other doctrines he GARDNER
was infected with as well.
Ideas like these are the reason Engelbart invented
the personal computer: he was after a gadget that
would ramp up the intelligence of humanity. It's ENGLEBARTS_BARD
also the reason Engelbart was later a sucker for EST.
And also the reason the 60s era loved the idea of
enlightenment in a pill.
It begins with Null-A, and it ends with Scientology
and EST, but along the way it spins off rocket
ships and computers, and transforms the world in
it's passing.
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