FIREPLACE READING of 'The Untouchables'September 4, 2021 |
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We gathered in this strange virtual place (that has become the social norm of our times) to listen to a story raising the very question: How can it be that the abnormal so quickly becomes normal?
'The Untouchables' is a short story conjuring up the spirit of the past, as it brings us to a temple city in the jungle with a culture low in technological advances (no electricity) but high in knowledge about the mind. Yet, it plays in the future, after the Great Cataclysm and tells us something about our present. How is a civilization possible that outlaws human touch? How does it feel never to be touched? Never to touch another? Can the human spirit overcome restrictions that do not stem from the highest law? ‘Day and night, my skin and my muscles ache, as they are forced to hold back the life force, keeping it in a perpetual prison of inner madness. And because I learned to keep my vitality within, everything is always far away from me. Everyone is always far away from me! Most untouchables, my Lady, are numb, walking around like ghosts from the graves: such is nature’s clemency for them. My body and my mind, however, are rebelling against that, no matter how high the price in pain. |
If you have missed out on the reading,
or would like to hear it again, here is an original, uncut recording for you. |
After the reading, we found a wonderful space together, in which we shared our thoughts and energies that went far beyond the telling of a story. An in-depth discussion followed for a couple of hours.
We spoke about:
- the central theme of the story: the importance of touch, how touch is not only necessary for survival (think of a baby) but also essential for our spiritual development... how a human body is instrumental to having new experiences... how the brain is not sufficient to process the entire human experience, it is the body-brain that gives us access to the ineffable...
- how it amounts to spiritual warfare, if a society outlaws touch, for touch deprivation weakens not only our physical and mental immune system but also limits our spiritual development...
- the central theme of the story: the importance of touch, how touch is not only necessary for survival (think of a baby) but also essential for our spiritual development... how a human body is instrumental to having new experiences... how the brain is not sufficient to process the entire human experience, it is the body-brain that gives us access to the ineffable...
- how it amounts to spiritual warfare, if a society outlaws touch, for touch deprivation weakens not only our physical and mental immune system but also limits our spiritual development...
- how strange it is to meet in front of computer screens... yet, we also appreciated this modern technological magic, for it allowed us to connect from multiple countries through our voices, our visuals, and especially - as we increasingly felt throughout the session - our energies...
- other visions of the future in which people relate differently to touch... Hugo recalled a story by Isaac Asimov in which humans of the future were inhabiting all planets and the further they went from Earth, the more they distanced from each other, too... We remembered Chat Snow's experiments with future life hypnosis that brought alternative future visions of domed, over-industrialized cities as well as green, spiritual communities. Is there a forking in our fate occurring at the moment and it for us now to chose a more loving future as opposed to giving in to fear?
- how story-telling used to be organic once upon a time... stories were purified through retelling over generations, even centuries, like water filters through many subterranean layers before it emerges at the spring... Today, the overuse of copyright does not allow for such natural development... but using creative commons can bring back the tradition
- how old human history could really be... Perhaps there were great cataclysms before our written history... perhaps our evolution occurs in cycles like our racial memory seems to suggest...
Please find below a short article for further thought about this last point and also feel free to comment your own thoughts, leave suggestions (books) etc.
- other visions of the future in which people relate differently to touch... Hugo recalled a story by Isaac Asimov in which humans of the future were inhabiting all planets and the further they went from Earth, the more they distanced from each other, too... We remembered Chat Snow's experiments with future life hypnosis that brought alternative future visions of domed, over-industrialized cities as well as green, spiritual communities. Is there a forking in our fate occurring at the moment and it for us now to chose a more loving future as opposed to giving in to fear?
- how story-telling used to be organic once upon a time... stories were purified through retelling over generations, even centuries, like water filters through many subterranean layers before it emerges at the spring... Today, the overuse of copyright does not allow for such natural development... but using creative commons can bring back the tradition
- how old human history could really be... Perhaps there were great cataclysms before our written history... perhaps our evolution occurs in cycles like our racial memory seems to suggest...
Please find below a short article for further thought about this last point and also feel free to comment your own thoughts, leave suggestions (books) etc.
If you enjoyed this story evening, join us next time, too - when we dive deep into the realm of the shadow through 'The Tales of the 1001 Nights.'
Food for further thought:
How old is Human History Really? - The Idea of Cyclical Civilistions
Does history occur in a one-time fashion, as mainstream history books suggest?
Or were there civilizations before ours, as our racial memory (mythology) seems to suggest?
Or were there civilizations before ours, as our racial memory (mythology) seems to suggest?
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In our current mainstream understanding, the human adventure is portrayed as a one-time occurrence, which started in the animal kingdom some 2.8 million years ago, when carnivorous scavengers began to use their brains better and made tools. Anatomically modern humans were around in the last 200.000 years. Yet, civilisation is supposed to have only begun ca 5.000 years ago. That accounts for less than 0.3% (!) of all the time in which human consciousness was present on the planet. Were we doing nothing else than chipping flint-stones for all these years? There seems to be evidence which suggests otherwise: humans must have exhibited previous cultural cycles in the past.
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We have remnants of a megalithic culture all over the planet, about which we know nothing. The Hypogeum in Malta goes two storeys deep into the ground.
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List of historic anomalies:☼ We can find remains of large buildings of unknown age on the planet, the building of which required high levels of technology (e.g. Ollantaytambo, Baalbek).
☼ There seems to exist a vast underground tunnel system, the age of which is unknown, but reaches over large areas and might have been used for habitation (see also Derinkuyu). ☼ Megalithic structures, such as Stonehenge are universal all across the Earth, but we virtually know nothing about the culture which erected them. ☼ Specialised knowledge in prehistoric times seems more sophisticated than we can give account for (see e.g. the colonization of Australia 55.000 years ago). ☼ Water erosion marks on the Great Sphinx at Giza show that the statue is actually older than dynastic Egypt. The recently unearthed temple at Göbekli Tepe (carbon-dated back to 8-10.000 BC) features a complex temple structure, complete with precision masonry and developed artwork. ☼ Culture precedes civilization. At the dawn of civilization there was already a high level of social organisation, culture (see e.g. the Epic of Gilgamesh), and we even have artifacts pointing towards the explorations of non-physical realms going back as much as 40.000 (!) years. |
If some catastrophe wiped out
our present civilization, in 10.000 years time no track would remain of our existence, except remains of some large buildings, like the Hoover Dam or the President's Head carved into Mount Rushmore.
These five gigantic blocks at Ollantaytambo, Peru are of unknown age and unknown origin, just as the head figures on Eastern Island. Everything we seem to know about these structures is speculation, because (unlike carbon) stone cannot be dated.
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