## Medusa's Mirror: Infohazards, Hyperstition, and Ontological Contamination in Forbidden Media Why are there so many stories about "forbidden media"? Books, movies, songs and other media that will cause madness (or the disintegration of reality) when they are read, watched, heard, or spoken aloud? ## Themes:  folklore, philosophy of mind, Media theory Pessimism, Hyperstition, Memetic Contagion, Ontological Contamination blurring of fact and fiction taboo Forbidden Fruit and Containment Protocols ennui/addiction memesis, memetic transmission, memetic desire [Abjection (Kristeva)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjection) [Medusa Gaze](https://www.gillianmealban.com/books) [samizdat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat) hauntology loss of innocence, defilement Contamination corruption Madness, compulsion obsession/addiction/slavery Spontaneous Kundalini Awakening Transpersonal break Encryption/Alchemical wedding/gnosticism Finitude, perspective, insignificance ## Mechanisms of contact ### Oppositional Gaze: - [the Basilisk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilisk) - Medusa ### Hearing siren song Piping - Piper at the gates of Dawn - Pied Piper ### spoken word - Reading aloud from ancient tomes - recording in evil dead ### Entering a space - the Labyrinth (House of Leaves) - Total Perspective Vortex - The Zone (Stalker) - Area X (Southern Reach) ### Spectation - Videodrome - The Ring - Colour Out of Space - The King in Yellow ## Related Tropes [Pass it on](https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/1av41z0/movies_with_a_pass_it_on_trope/) [Brown note](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrownNote) [Mind virus](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MindVirus) [Sirens song](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SirenSong) [Artifact of death](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtifactOfDeath) [Artifact of attraction ](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtifactOfAttraction) [Our Sirens Are Different](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurSirensAreDifferent) ## Media Examples ### Ancient #### [The Book of Thoth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Thoth) Book of Thoth, said to contain "all knowledge of laws, magic, nature and the afterlife" appears in a demotic Ptolemaic papyrus. The book contains two spells... one of which allows the reader to perceive the gods themselves 1.  Lichtheim 2006, pp. 125–136 #### Fruit of Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil #### King Belshazzar's feast _MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN_ #### Ark of Covenant and the Tabernacle Exodus 25:8, 26, 30; Leviticus 16; Hebrews 9:1-5 construction (Exodus 25-26), dedication (Exodus 40), entry into the Holy of Holies (Numbers 4, 1 Kings 8), and New Testament fulfillment in Christ (Hebrews 9-10). 2 Samuel 6: When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God. #### The Sirens #### Actaeon and Artemis --- ### Philosophy Derrida - [_Archive Fever_ (Mal d'archive)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_Fever) [The experience machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine) [Theory-Fiction](https://www.full-stop.net/2020/10/21/features/essays/macon-holt/hyperstitional-theory-fiction/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) --- ### Literature: #### Novels [Antkind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antkind) Hitchhikers Guide - Total Perspective Vortex [House of Leaves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves) [Infinite Jest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest) [Pontypool changes everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontypool_Changes_Everything#:~:text=A%20new%20kind%20of%20virus,to%20its%20source%20and%20treatment.) [Ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(Suzuki_novel)) (1991) Universal Harvester? #### Short Stories "[The Haunter of the Dark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunter_of_the_Dark)" by HP Lovecraft ([text](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hd.aspx)) "The Repairer Of Reputations" by Robert W Chambers ([The King in Yellow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow) ) "[The Aleph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aleph_(short_story))" by Jorge Luis Borges ([text](https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/borgesaleph.pdf)) "[The Book of Sand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Sand)" by Jorge Luis Borges ([text](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hQDvSqXuQXFWhI7bBSsgn_Qcsg5eOHpB6kdLXYqPR9A/edit?usp=sharing)) "[Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tl%C3%B6n,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertius)" by Jorge Luis Borges ([text](https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Borges-Tl%C3%B6n-Uqbar-Orbius-Tertius.pdf)) "[The Zahir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zahir)" by Jorge Luis Borges ([text](https://sffaudiomediacan.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/TheZahirByJorgeLuisBorgesTranslatedByDudleyFitts.pdf) "[Ubbo-Sathla](https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Ubbo-Sathla_(short_story))" by Clark Ashton Smith ([text](https://www.libraryofshortstories.com/storiespdf/ubbo-sathla.pdf)) ["Vastarien"](https://tasker.land/2024/04/11/on-vastarien-by-thomas-ligotti/) by Thomas Ligotti ([text](https://randomthings.neocities.org/#calibre_link-20)) *[The B.L.I.T](https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm)* by David Langford [each thing i show you is a piece of my death](https://www.apexbookcompany.com/a/blog/apex-magazine/post/each-thing-i-show-you-is-a-piece-of-my-death) #### Anthologies Lost Signals Lost Films Lost Contact Eternal Family TV ---- ### Cinema #### Movies [Inland empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Empire_(film)) [Lost Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Highway_(film) the videotape [They Live](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live) [Videodrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome) [Brainstorm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorm_(1983_film)) [letterboxd](https://boxd.it/1MUW) [the juniper tree ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Juniper_Tree_(film)) [In the Mouth of Madness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Mouth_of_Madness) sutter cane [Cigarette Burns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_Burns) [Antrum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antrum_(film)) [Bee Season](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Season_(film)) (2005) [Under the Silver Lake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Silver_Lake) (2018) [The Stone Tapes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stone_Tape) [I Saw the TV Glow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Saw_the_TV_Glow) [We're All Going to the World's Fair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We%27re_All_Going_to_the_World%27s_Fair) [Ring ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(film))(1998 japanese) [_The Ring_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_(2002_film)) (2002 US film) [Pootie Tang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pootie_Tang) [Mars Attacks!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Attacks!) [Slim Whitman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Whitman) #### TV Series *Doctor Who*, S10E6: "Extremis" [The Veritas](https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Veritas_(text)) the book was sealed inside the [Haereticum](https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Haereticum "Haereticum") *I'm a Virgo*,S1E7: "A Metaphor for What" ["Parking Tickets", aka: Boyoyoyoyoing](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/mystery-meat-media-unpacks-im-virgo-animation-and-meta-understanding-audiences) _Angel_, S5E14: "[Smile Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_Time)" _Buffy_, S1E8: "[I, Robot... You, Jane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot..._You,_Jane)" [deadwax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwax) #### Skits [Deadly Joke ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeMnPyusuBE)from Monty Python  [A heap of trouble (just walking down the road) ](https://www.stevesullivan.co.uk/a-heap-of-trouble-1) ---- ### Music and Videos [Radiohead just](https://youtu.be/oIFLtNYI3Ls?si=qxqyZR4a6_I3W4sR) [Kate bush experiment iv](https://youtu.be/NTUcoR8_pyE?si=fsgyxej3LOLNpOw7) [TMBG: Experimental Film](https://youtu.be/ZUgMpG1I_o8?si=Z3upUGwDNZ6APLPA) [TMBG: Spiraling Shape](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em6v3sF7stM&list=RDEm6v3sF7stM&start_radio=1) [Lonely Island: When will the bass drop](https://youtu.be/XCawU6BE8P8?si=mHqmnRxf4Y2G0I5v) ["Finite Jest"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--i0O9vskR0) ### Videogames [polybius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(urban_legend)) ### Interactive Fiction [_Night Film_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Film) ---- ### IRL [Chain Letter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_letter) [Scientific Research](https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2019/11/forbidden-knowledge-in-scientific-research/) Meta-aspect of obsessive puzzle media fandom (eg mulholland drive) [Upstream Color](https://www.avclub.com/upstream-color-1798176362): “the type of art that inspires curiosity and obsession, like some beautiful object whose meaning remains tantalizingly out of reach.” ARGs Pokemon Episode Season 1, Episode 38, December 16, 1997, "Electric Soldier Porygon"/"Computer Warrior Porygon" [Momo Challenge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo_Challenge_hoax) [Loab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loab) [The Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)) [Roko's Basilisk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk) [Ring marketing ](https://www.reddit.com/r/VHS/comments/1cwue6e/the_ring_promo_cassette/) ### ### Systems of Containment or Quarantine In *Book of Sand* the book was procured by a bible salesman "in exchange for a handful of rupees and a Bible." in turn it is traded to the narrator for a pension-check and a "black-letter Wiclif Bible". The book is ultimately "lost" in the “Argentine National Library, which contains nine hundred thousand volumes.” by the author, who, “slipping past a member of the staff and trying not to notice at what height or distance from the door, I lost the Book of Sand on one of the basement’s musty shelves.” (Borges, 2007, p. 4) --- ## Sources Adams, Douglas. _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_. 25th anniversary facsimile ed. [Hitchhiker Series] ; [Bk. 1]. Harmony Books, 2004. Alban, Gillian M. E. _The Medusa Gaze in Contemporary Women’s Fiction: Petrifying, Maternal and Redemptive_. 1st ed. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. Aspray, Barnabas. _Ricœur at the Limits of Philosophy: God, Creation, and Evil_. Cambridge University Press, 2022. Biblioklept. “The Medusa v. The Odalisque (Infinite Jest).” _Biblioklept_, June 17, 2015. [https://biblioklept.org/2015/06/17/the-medusa-v-the-odalisque-infinite-jest/](https://biblioklept.org/2015/06/17/the-medusa-v-the-odalisque-infinite-jest/). Bikhchandani, Sushil, David Hirshleifer, and Ivo Welch. “A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change as Informational Cascades.” _The Journal of Political Economy_ (Chicago) 100, no. 5 (1992): 992–1026. [https://doi.org/10.1086/261849](https://doi.org/10.1086/261849). Blackmore, Susan J. _The Meme Machine_. Oxford University Press, 1999. “BLIT - a Short Story by David Langford.” Accessed December 11, 2025. [https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm](https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm). Borges, Jorge Luis. _Book of Sand ; and, Shakespeare’s Memory_. Penguin Classics. Penguin Books, 2007. Bostrom, Nick. “INFORMATION HAZARDS: A TYPOLOGY OF POTENTIAL HARMS FROM KNOWLEDGE.” _Review of Contemporary Philosophy_ (Woodside) 10 (2011): 44-. Burn, Stephen. _David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: A Reader’s Guide_. 2nd ed. Continuum, 2012. Choi, Jiwoo. “Powers of (Body) Horror: Titane and the Queer Posthuman Abject.” _Screen Bodies (Print)_ (New York) 9, no. 1 (2024): 42–53. [https://doi.org/10.3167/screen.2024.090105](https://doi.org/10.3167/screen.2024.090105). Creed, Barbara. _The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis_. Popular Fiction Series. Routledge, 1993. Gordon, Lewis R. “A Black Existential Reflection on Hope.” In _The Virtue of Hope_. Oxford University Press, 2024. [https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190069575.003.0005](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190069575.003.0005). Holt, Macon. _Hyperstitional Theory-Fiction_. n.d. Accessed December 11, 2025. [https://www.full-stop.net/2020/10/21/features/essays/macon-holt/hyperstitional-theory-fiction/](https://www.full-stop.net/2020/10/21/features/essays/macon-holt/hyperstitional-theory-fiction/). “Https://Orbiscascade-Washington.Primo.Exlibrisgroup.Com/Discovery/Fulldisplay?docid=cdi_proquest_ebookcentralchapters_31928745_14_83&context=PC&vid=01ALLIANCE_UW:UW&lang=en&search_scope=UW_EVERYTHING&adaptor=Primo%20Central&tab=UW_default&query=any,Contains,Powers%20of%20Horror:%20An%20Essay%20on%20Abjection.” Accessed December 12, 2025. [https://orbiscascade-washington.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_proquest_ebookcentralchapters_31928745_14_83&context=PC&vid=01ALLIANCE_UW:UW&lang=en&search_scope=UW_EVERYTHING&adaptor=Primo%20Central&tab=UW_default&query=any,contains,Powers%20of%20Horror:%20An%20Essay%20on%20Abjection](https://orbiscascade-washington.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_proquest_ebookcentralchapters_31928745_14_83&context=PC&vid=01ALLIANCE_UW:UW&lang=en&search_scope=UW_EVERYTHING&adaptor=Primo%20Central&tab=UW_default&query=any,contains,Powers%20of%20Horror:%20An%20Essay%20on%20Abjection). Kozbelt, Aaron. “The Aesthetic Legacy of Evolution: The History of the Arts as a Window Into Human Nature.” _Publications and Research_, November 24, 2021. [https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bc_pubs/288](https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bc_pubs/288). Levack, Brian P. _The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe_. 2nd ed. Longman, 1995. Ligotti, Thomas. _Songs of a Dead Dreamer: And, Grimscribe_. Penguin Classics. Penguin Books, 2015. Lippit, Akira Mizuta. _Ex-Cinema: From a Theory of Experimental Film and Video_. 1st ed. University of California Press, 2012. [https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520424470](https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520424470). Lynch, David, Mary Sweeney, Laura Dern, et al. “Inland Empire.” Blu-ray Edition. The Criterion Collection 1175. The Criterion Collection, 2023. Mittman, Asa Simon, and Marcus Hensel. _Classic Readings on Monster Theory_. ARC Reference. ARC Humanities Press, 2018. Mittman, Asa Simon, and Marcus Hensel. _Classic Readings on Monster Theory_. ARC Reference. ARC Humanities Press, 2018. Modleski, Tania. _The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory_. Routledge, 1989. Moravec, Hans P. _Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind_. Oxford University Press, 1999. Munford, Rebecca. _Decadent Daughters and Monstrous Mothers: Angela Carter and European Gothic_. University Press, 2023. [https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526103444](https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526103444). Phillips, David P. “The Impact of Fictional Television Stories on U.S. Adult Fatalities: New Evidence on the Effect of the Mass Media on Violence.” _The American Journal of Sociology_ (United States) 87, no. 6 (1982): 1340–59. [https://doi.org/10.1086/227596](https://doi.org/10.1086/227596). Ricœur, Paul. _Evil: A Challenge to Philosophy and Theology_. With John Bowden and Graham Ward. Continuum, 2007. Seidman, Steven. “Defilement and Disgust: Theorizing the Other.” _American Journal of Cultural Sociology_ (London) 1, no. 1 (2013): 3–25. [https://doi.org/10.1057/ajcs.2012.3](https://doi.org/10.1057/ajcs.2012.3). Shapiro, Mary. “The Textually Aware Text: Recursive Self‐consciousness in Infinite Jest’s Filmography.” _Orbis Litterarum_ (Malden) 75, no. 1 (2020): 24–33. [https://doi.org/10.1111/oli.12246](https://doi.org/10.1111/oli.12246). Shattuck, Roger. _Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography_. 1st ed. St. Martin’s Press, 1996. Silk, Matthew S. W. “Forbidden Knowledge in Scientific Research.” _The Prindle Institute for Ethics_, November 13, 2019. [https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2019/11/forbidden-knowledge-in-scientific-research/](https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2019/11/forbidden-knowledge-in-scientific-research/). Thacker, Eugene. _In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy. Vol. 1_. Horror of Philosophy ; v. 1. Zero Books, 2011. Thacker, Eugene. _Infinite Resignation_. Repeater Books, an imprint of Watkins Media Ltd., 2018. “‘The Book of Sand,’ by Jorge Luis Borges | The New Yorker.” Accessed December 12, 2025. [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1976/10/25/the-book-of-sand](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1976/10/25/the-book-of-sand). “The Buddhist Mythmaking of Defilement: Sacred Courtesans in Medieval Japan on JSTOR.” Accessed December 9, 2025. [https://www-jstor-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/stable/2059144?seq=1](https://www-jstor-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/stable/2059144?seq=1). “‘The Haunter of the Dark’ by H. P. Lovecraft.” Accessed December 12, 2025. [https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hd.aspx](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hd.aspx). “The Last Messiah | Issue 45 | Philosophy Now.” Accessed December 12, 2025. [https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/The_Last_Messiah](https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/The_Last_Messiah). Unger, Matthew P. “Defilement and Social Theory.” In _Sound, Symbol, Sociality: The Aesthetic Experience of Extreme Metal Music_, edited by Matthew P. Unger. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016. [https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47835-1_3](https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47835-1_3). Unger, Matthew P. _Sound, Symbol, Sociality: The Aesthetic Experience of Extreme Metal Music_. Palgrave Pivot. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. W. Chambers, Robert. “The Repairer of Reputations.” In _Horror Stories_, by Robert W. Chambers. Oxford University Press, 2018. [https://doi.org/10.1093/owc/9780199685448.003.0019](https://doi.org/10.1093/owc/9780199685448.003.0019). ## Suggestions [Vintage media in dark fiction](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/138279.Vintage_media_in_dark_fiction) [Lost Media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_media) [Stories about Cursed Media](https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/15wfvir/stories_about_cursed_media/) [Cursed Media Iceberg](https://youtu.be/kYxoWfxbd8A?si=8lVftMvLz0NJ5eb8) [Cursed internet iceberg](https://fridaynightfunking.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000391540) ![[Pasted image 20251209140204.png]] ![[Pasted image 20251209140215.png]] ![[icebergcharts.com_i_IRL_infohazard.png]] ## [Information hazards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_hazard) **(Bostrom) (information that harms)** - **Data hazards**: A piece of data that can be used to harm others, such as the DNA sequence of a lethal pathogen - **Idea hazards**: General ideas that can harm others if fulfilled. One example is the idea of "using a fission reaction to create a bomb". Knowing this idea alone can be enough for a well-resourced team to develop a nuclear bomb. - **Knowing-too-much hazards**: Information that, if known, can cause danger to the person who knows it. For example, in the 1600s, women who allegedly possessed knowledge of the occult or birth control methods were at a higher risk of being accused of witchcraft ## Hyperstition (theory-fiction) > “An example of hyperstition is the way that the term “cyberspace”—which originated in William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer—became, by the mid-1990s, the primary conceptual dispositif through which we understood the emerging technologies of the internet.” (Holt) > “culture, politics, economics, identity, and technology are all part of some kind of cybernetic system—i.e., an interconnected system whose functioning is regulated by, ruptured by, and respondent to complex mechanisms of feedback—then how could one theorize about any of these entangled phenomena without also producing operative fictions that feed back into the system” (Holt) ## Infinite Jest ### The Medusa v. The Odalisque (Infinite Jest) "But this one other short high-tech one was called ‘The Medusa v. The Odalisque’ and was a film of a fake stage-production at Ford’s Theater in the nation’s capital of Wash. DC that, like all his audience-obsessed pieces, had cost Incandenza a real bundle in terms of human extras. The extras in this one are a well-dressed audience of guys in muttonchops and ladies with paper fans who fill the place from first row to the rear of the balcony’s boxes, and they’re watching an incredibly violent little involuted playlet called ‘The Medusa v. The Odalisque,’ the relatively plotless plot of which is just that the mythic Medusa, snake-haired and armed with a sword and well-polished shield, is fighting to the death or petrification against L’Odalisque de Ste. Thérèse, a character out of old Québecois mythology who was supposedly so inhumanly gorgeous that anyone who looked at her turned instantly into a human-sized precious gem, from admiration. A pretty natural foil for the Medusa, obviously, the Odalisque has only a nail-file instead of a sword, but also has a well-wielded hand-held makeup mirror, and she and the Medusa are basically rumbling for like twenty minutes, leaping around the ornate stage trying to de-map each other with blades and/or de-animate each other with their respective reflectors, which each leaps around trying to position just right so that the other gets a glimpse of its own full-frontal reflection and gets instantly petrified or gemified or whatever. In the cartridge it’s pretty clear from their milky-pixeled translucence and insubstantiality that they’re holograms, but it’s not clear what they’re supposed to be on the level of the playlet, whether the audience is supposed to see/(not)see them as ghosts or wraiths or ‘real’ mythic entities or what. But it’s a ballsy fight-scene up there on the stage — having been intricately choreographed by an Oriental guy Himself rented from some commercial studio and put up in the HmH, who ate like a bird and smiled very politely all the time and didn’t have even a word to say to anybody, it seemed, except Avril, to whom the Oriental choreographer had cottoned right off — balletic and full of compelling little cornerings and near-misses and reversals, and the theater’s audience is rapt and clearly entertained to the gills, because they keep spontaneously applauding, as much maybe for the film’s play’s choreography as anything else — which would make it more like spontaneously meta-applauding, Hal supposes — because the whole fight-scene has to be ingeniously choreographed so that both combatants have their respectively scaly and cream-complected backs 155. to the audience, for obvious reasons… except as the shield and little mirror get whipped martially around and brandished at various strategic angles, certain members of the playlet’s well-dressed audience eventually start catching disastrous glimpses of the combatants’ fatal full-frontal reflections, and instantly get transformed into like ruby statues in their front-row seats, or get petrified and fall like embolized bats from the balcony’s boxes, etc. The cartridge goes on like this until there’s nobody left in the Ford’s Theater seats animate enough to applaud the nested narrative of the fight-scene play, and it ends with the two aesthetic foils still rumbling like mad before an audience of varicolored stone. ‘The Medusa v. The Odalisque’ ’s own audiences didn’t think too much of the thing, because the film audience never does get much of a decent full-frontal look at what it is about the combatants that supposedly has such a melodramatic effect on the rumble’s live audience, and so the film’s audience ends up feeling teased and vaguely cheated, and the thing had only a regional release, and the cartridge rented like yesterday’s newspapers, and it’s now next to impossible to find. 155. The Medusa wears a kind of chain-mail backless evening gown and Hellenic sandals, the Odalisque a Merry Widow." > "Hal's mental degradation and [alienation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_alienation "Social alienation") from those around him culminate in his chronologically last appearance in the novel, in which his attempts at speech and facial expressions are incomprehensible to others." ## Zappfe "Future’s curtain unravelled itself to reveal a nightmare of endless repetition, a senseless squander of organic material. The suffering of human billions makes its entrance into him through the gateway of compassion..." (“The Last Messiah | Issue 45 | Philosophy Now”) “Such a ‘feeling of cosmic panic’ is pivotal to every human mind. Indeed, the race appears destined to perish in so far as any effective preservation and continuation of life is ruled out when all of the individual’s attention and energy goes to endure, or relay, the catastrophic high tension within.” (“The Last Messiah | Issue 45 | Philosophy Now”) “It is not the soul being sick, but its protection failing, or else being rejected because it is experienced – correctly – as a betrayal of ego’s highest potential.” (“The Last Messiah | Issue 45 | Philosophy Now”) ### Containment Protocols 1. **Isolation** - “a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling” *Failure* - "...when a man who weeps on the street is removed with police assistance." 2. **Anchoring** - “from early childhood; parents, home, the street become matters of course to the child and give it a sense of assurance. This sphere of experience is the first, and perhaps the happiest, protection against the cosmos that we ever get to know in life...” *Failure* - “an anchoring spasm occurs: One clings to the dead values, concealing as well as possible from oneself and others the fact that they are unworkable, that one is spiritually insolvent.” 3. **Distraction** - "One limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions" *Failure* - "When all distractive options are expended, spleen sets in, ranging from mild indifference to fatal depression" 4. **Sublimation** - “transformation rather than repression. Through stylistic or artistic gifts can the very pain of living at times be converted into valuable experiences.” *Failure* - “To write a tragedy, one must to some extent free oneself from – betray – the very feeling of tragedy and regard it from an outer, e.g. aesthetic, point of view.” ## Adventure Time [A Glitch is a Glitch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Glitch_Is_a_Glitch) Season 5 Ep.15 Ontologial corruption [Clip](https://youtu.be/g32xoXoQChw?si=xQ1sez7hwTkTVP22) ### [Blank-Eyed Girl](https://adventuretime.fandom.com/wiki/Blank-Eyed_Girl) Season 7 Ep.19 Hyperstition [Episode](https://youtu.be/fMYs-tuyuFA?si=WYLRiN0Cw2SPyzgM) ## Rick and Morty ### [Morty's Mind Blowers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morty%27s_Mind_Blowers) **Season 3 Ep.8** ["truth tortoise" clip](https://youtu.be/ZY7_4gKnk1s?si=UNmJW5wsJvUTXo0d) ## True Detective [Video Clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpErW9MnCf8) "I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution we became too self-aware nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself we are creatures that should not exist by natural law" --- "that sounds God fucking awful, rust" "we are things that labor under the illusion of having a self. This accretion of sensory experience and feeling programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody when in fact everybody's nobody." --- "I wouldn't go around spouting that shit if I was you. People around here don't think that way. I don't think that way." "I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming stop reproducing walk, hand and hand into Extinction. One last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal." --- "so what's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?" "I tell myself I bear witness. The real answer is that it's obviously my programming and I lack the Constitution for suicide." --- "my luck. I picked today to get to know you. 3 months I don't hear a word from you and..." "you asked." --- "yeah. And now I'm begging you to shut the fuck up." ## Borges "Summer came and went, and I realized that the book was monstrous. What good did it do me to think that I, who looked upon the volume with my eyes, who held it in my hands, was any less monstrous? I felt that the book was a nightmarish object, an obscene thing that affronted and tainted reality itself." (Book of Sand) "Zahir in Arabic means "notorious," "visible"; in this sense it is one of the ninetynine names of God, and the people (in Muslim territories) use it to signify "beings or things which possess the terrible property of being unforgettable, and whose image finally drives one mad.""(The Zahir p125) "They will have to feed me and dress me, I shall not know whether it is afternoon or morning, I shall not know who Borges was. To call this prospect terrible is a fallacy, for none of its circumstances will exist for me. One might as well say that an anesthetized man feels terrible pain when they open his cranium. I shall no longer perceive the universe: I shall perceive the Zahir." "According to the teaching of the Idealists, the words "live" and "dream" are rigorously synonymous. From thousands of images I shall pass to one; from a highly complex dream to a dream of utter simplicity. Others will dream that I am mad; I shall dream of the Zahir. When all the men on earth think, day and night, of the Zahir, which will be a dream and which a reality - the earth or the Zahir?" "Time, which generally attenuates memories, only aggravates that of the Zahir." (p127) Also re: The coin - see Lippit - Exergue: “place that forms an interstice between the frame or framework, parergon, and the proper body of the work, ergon. It belongs neither to the inside nor the outside, is proper to neither, but also exists before and beyond the work, a work that comes apart, exergue.” (Lippit, 2012, p. 1) ## "Repairer of Reputations" Robert W Chambers "During my convalescence I had bought and read for the first time "The King in Yellow." I remember after finishing the first act that it occurred to me that I had better stop. I started up and flung the book into the fireplace; the volume struck the barred grate and fell open on the hearth in the fire-light. If I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I should never have finished it, but as I stooped to pick it up my eyes became riveted to the open page, and with a cry of terror, or perhaps it was of joy so poignant that I suffered in every nerve, I snatched the thing from the hearth and crept shaking to my bedroom, where I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with a horror which at times assails me yet. This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa, where black stars hang in the heavens, where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the Lake of Hali, and my mind will bear forever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth -- a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow. When the French government seized the translated copies which had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in "The King in Yellow," all felt that human nature could not bear the strain nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwards with more awful effect." ## "Vasterien" - Ligotti "In truth, there was little basis for his belief that there existed some arcana of a different kind altogether from that tendered by the books before him, all of which were sodden with an obscene reality. The other worlds portrayed in these books served only as annexes of this one; they were impostors of the authentic unreality which was the only redemption for Victor Keirion." "For he dreamed of shadowed volumes that preached no earthly catechisms but delineated only a tenebrous liturgy of the spectral and rites of salvation by way of meticulous derangement. His absolute: to dwell among the ruins of reality." "What remained was invariably a metaphysics as systematically trivial and debased as the world it purported to transcend... What remained _lost_ was the revelation that nothing ever known has ended in glory; that all which ends does so in exhaustion, confusion, and debris." “Well, you must be looking for something special... Have you ever heard of a book, an extremely special book, that is not…yes, that is not about something, but actually is that something?" "the text conveyed the impression of speaking for itself and speaking only to itself, its words being like shadows that were cast by no forms outside the book." "Could this book be a kind of invocation of a world in waiting of genesis? And was it a world at all? Rather the unreal essence of one, all natural elements purged from it by an ineffable process of extraction, all days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares." "To all appearances it seemed he had discovered the summit or abyss of the unreal, that utopia of exhaustion, confusion, and debris where reality ends and where one may dwell among its ruins." "the stranger had given only so that he might possess the thing he could gain in no other way, that he was reading the book with borrowed eyes and stealing its secrets from the soul of its rightful reader" “And when someone asks what the book means to him, or even what its name is…what would be our answer?” "They were part of a world of overbearing and yet deficient realities. They were shackled for life to their own bodies, while he was now in a place that owed nothing to corporeal existence. And never, it truly seemed, could he be forced to abandon this domain of wayward wonders. _Never._"