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THE
VORACIOUS ALIENS
By William S. Burroughs
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The
human race is being attacked by a sort of mind cancer. Something
is sucking the human mind dry and has been sucking it for the
past two hundred years." That is the shattering discovery
made by Prof. Gilbert Austin. Who or what is responsible? Mind
parasites, malignant beings who lurk in the deepest layers of
the unconscious... (in precise terms of physiology this would
correspond to the back brain or hypothalamus)...
"Sapping the very life force of mankind,
cutting him off from his natural capacity for self-renewal...
It was all so unsettling that I broke the habit of year4s and
drank a bottle of champagne at lunch time."
These words from Colin Wilson's science
fiction novel The Mind Parasites reflect the presence of malignant
viruses that are affecting human control over human situations.
There is considerable inferential evidence to indicate the actual
existence of such a parasitic instance as this book postulates.
An Italian sociologist said: "If you want to get to the bottom
of any situation that seems on the surface inexplicable, just
ask yourself the simple question 'Who profits?'. Who would profit
form blocking every basic discovery about the human mind? Techniques
are now available to alter consciousness and effect the hypothalamus
directly.
In a recent Mayfair article (Bulletin 17
The Brain Grinders) I described the experiments of Dr Millar who
has demonstrated that any mammal can learn to control such seemingly
involuntary processes as brain waves, blood pressure, rate of
hearty beat his whole state of mind and body. Doctor Millar had
great difficulty raising funds for his experiments. The importance
of the experiments was completely missed by the Press.
The means are at hand to control spec but
they are not being used. Despite impressive technical advances
the planet is still in The Stone Age psychologically. Who would
profit from turning the clock all the way back to the Stone Age
and keeping man out of inner space? Only in the last two hundred
years have technological advances made space exploration a possibility.
By maintaining control of inner space the parasites can block
any discovery or destroy anyone who suspects their existence.
It is in fact unexplained suicides among scientists investigating
inner space that lead to the discovery of these parasites by the
narrator Prof. G. Austin.
Once the presence of the parasites is inferred
the means to combat them is obvious... They must be combated by
the brain itself... pushed up beyond its limits so that men can
read each other's thoughts... and control their own thought's
and feelings...
So they join battle with the parasites
on equal terms.
These are precisely the measures I have
advocated in the Acadamy Series, measures that must be applied
whether we believe in mind-parasites or not, if man is to expand
his horizons and survive in the space age. There is no turning
back to the false security of dogmatic creeds.
"To travel in space you must learn
to leave the old verbal garbage behind: God talk, priest talk,
mother talk, family talk, love talk, party talk. You must learn
to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn
to see what is in front of you with no preconceptions."
In Mr Wilson's narrative it is a space
voyage that finally defeats the parasites. They cannot survive
in space. As the space craft travels further and further form
the earth, the parasites still lurking in the crew are in a panic.
"Now they felt their psychic links
with the earth stretching and growing weaker and they were frightened.
We now understand the nature of space fever that had so far frustrated
all men's attempts to penetrate further into space."
Known, watched, the parasites become desperate
and they now reveal themselves to be creatures of a low-intelligence-order,
floundering about like beached squids.
"It happened on the fourteenth day...
something infinitely evil and slimy was pushing its way from inside
me. I realised I had been wrong to think of the parasites as separate
beings. They were one with IT. An immense jelly like octopus whose
tentacles are separate form its body and come about like individuals."
... (And this being is none other than
the ancient slug Abhoth the Dark, also known as Abhoth the Unclean)...
... "Now this infinitely vile thing
was coming out of its lair and I could feel its hatred of me,
a hatred so powerful and maniacal that IT almost needs a new word.
Then the inexpressible relief of knowing that it was gone..."
What's made this planet such a soft touch
for Abhoth?... The greatest human limitation is that we are all
tied to the present by an arbitrary identity, personal and national.
What is identity? The identity of a shark
is its teeth, its size, its ability to eat and digest almost anything.
An oyster's identity is its protective shell. Identity is then
the means by which an organism protects itself and maintains itself
in a hostile environment and all environments that contain other
such identities are hostile.
And what is the identity of Abohth the
Dark?
Its ability to remain hidden and carry
on a parasitic existence that is hostile to the host by parasitic
necessity. So we are all playing Abhoth's game. and by setting
one identity against another Abhoth maintains himself indefinitely.
Isolation from such an environment is the
first step into the unexplored territory of inner space...
"As man loses touch with his inner
being he finds himself trapped in the world of other people. "Man
is a political animal" said Aristotle telling one of the
greatest lies in human history. For every man has more in common
with the hills or stars than with other men, Other men do not
supply our values. Other men do not matter in the way we have
believed.
Man is not alone.
You could be the last man in the universe
and you would not be alone..."
A further example of the way the virus
works is manifested in The Farm, Clarence Cooper's novel of a
Negro drug addict. This is the virus of narcotic addiction, and
the penal system fostering it.
"We saw a nigger woman dead on the
road. In a flash of that instant the black woman crimped in the
smoky shimmering wreck...
The windshield had come inward like a butter
knife to slice her head directly down the middle clear to the
back of the her head so her thick just done hair sprayed like
fine black blossoms in the wind and snow clung to it like the
tiny hairs of Medusa and I heard one of them say up front:
"Gosh, Bob, did you see that niggerwoman?"
A Negro drug addict and pusher doing five
years for sale of heroin is the custody of two marshals. He is
being transferred from a Federal penitentiary to a Federal Narcotics
Farm. Admission is restricted to narcotic offenders. Anyone can
admit himself to the Farm for Treatment.
And these volunteers are allowed to leave
on 24 hour notice, unless notice is given on Friday day. The Farm
is a prison where prisoners who misbehave are subject to expulsion,
i.e. return to federal penitentiary.
The guards do not carry guns and physical
mistreatment of a prisoner would place a guard in danger of dismissal
and loss of pension. This is not a story of sweat boxes, whips
and chains. Consider the case of a an old German doctor who is
caught short over a weekend and dies from a lack of medication:
Dr Uxekoll, looking fat around the ass,
from the too small white jacket he was wearing, was lecturing
the other doctor like a judge. The man must have been 65 or 70
years old kinda Germanlooking looked like a dope fiend to me.
He was beautiful too with a face full of anxious lovely things
to be remembered a completely alien personality to me.
"And you mean to tell me that I can't
have medication? Surely you are joking?"
"Boy, I wish I was" said Dr.
Uxkoll grinning. "We can't give you any medication because
our studies show relatively cold withdrawal is best long run."
He shook his head and shrugged grinning.
"That's the best deal I can offer
you Doc."
"For years I have laboured under the
delusion that this place was specifically set up for the relief
of addicts. I've even refereed patients here. You tell me that
now I have committed myself I am a prisoner until Monday morning
and you will do nothing in that time to relieve my illness. I
simply can't believe it is happening."
Uxekoll was smiling and benign: he held
his hands together in front like a priest.
"I'm afraid it is. Happening I mean."...
The little doctor was dead by the time
they got him to hospital.
However the real shock of the book lies
not in what the author describes but in what he takes for granted
like the weather:- that the American Narcotics Dept. has made
informing a way of life. It works like this...
Now here is Mr average Pusher in his impregnable
loft with double Locks and bars. They could never get him through
that door without leaving him time to dispose of the evidence.
Agents unscrew the firedoor and rush in finding opium hash LSD.
Now comes the spiel:
"Sit down Sam. Have a cigarette...
Don't worry about being put inside... as long as you cooperate,
yes I said co-operate..." So another informer-pusher is added
to the expanding tentacles of Abhoth the WRONG.
If on the other hand Sam has any silly
ideas about integrity... "All right wise guy we can get you
ten years..."
And they can.
To give some idea of the perversion of
values involved: In junky parlance a man who informs is WRONG...
("The laws against addiction must reflect society's disapproval
of the addict." Harry Anslinger) Addicts and pushers who
inform receive lighter sentences and in many cases no sentences
at all. So pressure is often put on an arrested addict by his
family who would be deprived of support if he went to prison...
Do RIGHT to inform, Do WRONG not to inform,
be RIGHT not to inform, be WRONG to inform. This is what the American
Narcotics Dept. is doing in America and what they will do anywhere
else they can find traction.
It can't happen in England? I'm afraid
it is. Happening, I mean. In 1959 a doctor connected with the
American Narcotics Dept. told Doctor Dent:
(Dr. Dent of England is the man who introduced
the apo-morphine treatment for addicts. This treatment is the
only treatment that works. It has never been tried in America.)
(Not so, Mr. Burroughs-- It has -with dire
results-Say no more.)
He said to Dent: "I have a hunch you
English will have our narcotics problem in ten years time."
In 1959 I wrote in Nova Express:
PLAN DRUG ADDICTION
Now you are asking me whether I want to
perpetuate a narcotics problem and I say:
"Protect the disease. Must be made
criminal protecting society form the disease."
The problem scheduled in the United States
the use of jail, former narcotics plan, addiction and crime for
many years. Addiction in some form is the basis. Must be wholly
addicts. Any voluntary capacity subversion of the Will Capital
and Treasury Bank. Infection dedicated to traffic in exchange
narcotics demonstrated a Typhoid Mary who will spread the narcotics
problem to the United Kingdom... Cut Up of Fighting Drug Addiction
by Malcolm Monroe Former Prosecutor in the Western World, October
1959. IT almost needs a new word.
Additional notes on drug farms: There is
an exclusive district in drug farms reserved for the DO-RIGHTS...
nicer roomed more medication better class of people. On the other
hand there is a place set aside for the Do-WRONGS over in section
B with the other canine preparations.
(Research at drug farms has conclusively
established the addiction liability of decorticated canine preparations
in plain English dogs with their brains cut out who nonetheless
react with sham rage and uncoordinated clonic movements when medication
is withheld.)
Now about these Do Rights I don't say they
are veteran informers, just normal human creeps. Here is Mr Average
Do Right shows up at the door with letters from his clergy man
bankmanager boss and boy picture of himself as an Eagle Scout
shaking hands with a priest on graduation day Old glory stirring
in the breeze of June. Not an informer exactly just a front office
brown nose.
"Doctor, when I die I want to be buried
right in the same coffin with you. Why you've made me see it all
so clear, I'm shaking all over."
"I'll put you down for some more medication,
son."
"Thank you doctor. Pushers should
receive the death penalty. And everybody knows pot-smoking leads
to heroin like whisky draws a priest?" Of such stuff are
DO-RIGHTS made. While down in the dim grey region Where the DO-WRONGS
hawk and spit..."
"The croakers wouldn't give me a goofball...
ask me what the United States Flag means to me? I tell him soak
it in HEROIN doc and I'll suck it... said I had the WRONG attitude
I should see the Padre and get it straight with Jesus."
The virus thrives on unthinking conservatism.
The less we consider our position, the less likely we are to turn
our attention inside ourselves, where the virus exists.
Bloodworld by Lawrence M Jennifer can be
read as a satire on self-righteous respectability. It concerns
a planet where the inhabitants are
Divided into two classes: Lords and Ladies,
and the Bound. The Bound are a slave caste. The Lords and Ladies
are born to command. The young and personable Bound are available
round the clock in the Remand Homes for the pleasure of the Lords
and Ladies. And this pleasure consists of tortures inflicted on
the Bound. There she is all tied up and waiting for you...
"The room which you will see... It
was a small room no one in it except the girl and myself everything
set out properly as of course it had to be since that was the
job of the officials there who were themselves Bound and glad
enough if you understand me of their simple tasks. There was the
fire burning and everything else that was required... the room...
the girl... the fire... Style B for on our world these matters
a coded.
They meant pain and the long screams. Not
even the screams of a lord meant to command. The girl was to scream.
That was her life to wail as a Bound Girl in the Remand houses
to be brought out and made ready for screams and for use.
Her eyes showed fright and that was very
good the fear fed me finally and fed me fully. I stepped to the
Fir3 bucket and withdrew a short handled metal band to touch her
where my mother resided in her and she shirked with the mad pain
the fine pain."
Or maybe you dig making love to a Bound
Girl and feeling her all over with rubber glove sipped in acid?
Well, that's what the Bound are there for to satisfy the Lords
and Ladies. There is no crime, no unemployment, no insanity. It
is Utopia. But sinister forces are at work. A man named Tonn who
lives on the outskirts of town precipitates an unsavoury scandal.
Haltingly, the hero's father, who is a pillar of Bloodworld society,
a Council Judge in fact, tells his adolescent son about men like
Tonn:
"He is actually seen there among the
Women... waiting for the Bound Men..."
Seen there and without shame...
"Father you mean that he..."
"Yes, he uses Bound Men for his pleasure..."
The idea was almost inconceivable. Pleasure
resided in a woman's body which was right and natural... (Just
a matter of wringing it out with a bra soaked with lye or hot
acid douche where it is right and natural.)
My father went on: "Some twist in
him. I understand there are others in other cities. But ours is
clean enough. That we should have one like Tonn is enough shame
for all our people."
But ours is clean enough. That we should
have one like Tonn is enough shame for all our people.
Summoned for questioning Tonn is cool...
suave and insolent...
"Tonn's eyes burned... they burned
with luminous dark flame and he seemed to sit quite at ease both
hands in his lap... resting waiting...
The useless whiteness of those hands seemed
terribly directed to some use I did not and could not imagine...
Tonn spoke as if no one else existed in
the room:
"Prolonging pain for a space of hours,
keeping the Bound in constant pain, creating varying levels alterable
at will these are the true art... causing actual tears at the
sight of my face..."
Unable to contain himself the Judge bursts
out:
"What are you techniques?"
Tonnn gives him no satisfaction. "I
am afraid Great Lord that these matters must be private. They
have nothing to do with your questioning."
Like another world De Sade, Tonn the Suberversive
corrupts the younger generation. The young are disillusioned with
the Bound who no longer respond, no longer scream.
They begin looking speculatively at Mom
and Dad over the wheaties. Mmmmmm. Inevitably they rise up and
kill the entire older generation. And they scream good.
"BUT WE' RE COUNCIL MEMBERS!!"
"We are the council!"
And she shreiked again in their licking
flames.
"It was fun."
The illusive Mr. Tonn is nowhere to be
found.
"Yet Tonn seems the most important
to me of all... Our world is gone and this is our end."
From
the Mayfair magazine series entitled "The Burroughs Academy"
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