November 23, 2010

#TemporalTues Doctor Who 1963, here I come

If Riglet manages to crack the code of our time machine I am off to watch the first episode of Doctor Who this evening in 1963. Putting on some early sixties gear for the occasion. Must remember not to be a wally and answer my mobile phone. Better turn it off. Hoping that time travel does not make my memory loss any worse. Also have to make sure I time it so that I arrive just after I leave, 5.15pm to be precise. Did you like the dry way that I said that?

http://lostsymbologist.posterous.com/beatlemania-and-the-first-episode-of-dr-who

Riglet has just told me that she has cracked the code of the Chateau Madeleine time machine. We are sitting on its lovely leather seat. The room around us has gone dark. I think we are off.

September 14, 2010

Riglet to the rescue before you can say Doctor Who

Got back safely to Paris and did plenty of retail therapy, then went to see my therapist. My psychologist was intrigued to hear about my Amsterdam murder mystery. When I told her about the magic mushrooms she wanted to know if they brought back any memories. Sadly I had to disappoint her. My mind is as blank as it ever was. The weather does not help either. On my return to Chateau Madeleine I was told that the harvest this year could be a little late and lower than usual because of the rains. This morning I decided to take another look at the time machine next to the library, curious to know if it was real. While I was fiddling around with the brass knobs and bells, my teddy bear, the little one hanging on my bag, decided to say good morning to me. That's all I need, I thought. Start hearing voices, why don't you. It turns out that the little bear is called Riglet and is a nanobot. Riglet offered her services to help crack the code of the time machine. She seems rather smart and much better at math than I am, so I said go ahead. If this works I'll be in 2012 before you can say Doctor Who. If not perhaps I need a reality check.

September 7, 2010

Sarayu in need of retail therapy - please send chocolate

Yesterday we saw the Amsterdam police again. The agents investigating Bill's death told us that they were treating the case as a possible murder. They asked us whether we had known Bill for long. We said that we had only just met him. It was odd that one the detectives on the case was from SOCA in London, and he was curious to know what I was up to in Paris. When I said that I did not know, and that I was being treated for memory loss, he asked me if I did drugs. I replied maybe, but not since I lost my memory. That brought a nervous laugh into the room, a small office in the Raamport police station that was responsible for the Herengracht and the canal area. It seems that I am not known to them, which is a relief. At least I can see my psychologist this week with a clear conscience. It would be scary if I turned out to be some gangsta's moll on the run. Bill told us very little about his life, other than to say that he had fallen on hard times in Amsterdam. He had had a good job in the City in London, but developed an expensive heroin habit and came over to Amsterdam, where he worked as a cannabis breeder. That was how he met Aum Baba, and they fell out over money. He claimed that the Church of Aum had some curious links to the CIA and the Mossad, although much of what he said sounded a bit like the usual ganja paranoia. Perhaps there was a grain of truth in it. If SOCA new about him he must have been up to something, or on to something, that was serious. His 2012 theory does have one odd fact that concerns me. My name is mentioned in the Lost Symbologist philosophers stoned in Amsterdam in which I am supposed to be making a killing with the 2012 meme. I hope that does not come back to haunt me. How I wish I had the access code to Monsieur Bateleur's time machine. Then I could go forward to 2012 and find out what was about to happen. Anyway tomorrow I am off to Paris, and I am badly in need of some retail therapy to take my mind off all this serious shit.

September 2, 2010

A witch's brew at the Dutch Old Bill

Just spent a couple of hours with the Dutch Old Bill, being interviewed about Bill's death. It seems that he was poisoned and dumped in the Herengracht. The Amsterdam police found traces of a witch's brew of datura, henbane, deadly nightshade and mandrake in Bill's body. He must have had quite a trip before he shuffled off this mortal coil. The cops found my number in his mobile, and it seems that Simon and I were the last to see him alive when we met in De Balie the other day. We are not under suspicion but the police have asked us to stay in Amsterdam for a couple more days for some further questioning. They were curious to know more about Aum Baba and the wacky cult of the Church of Aum. When we told them about our recent psychedelic mushroom trip, they wanted to know more. It seems that Aum Baba is well known to them, and has a bit of Dutch previous.

August 31, 2010

The creepy church of Aum Baba

Louis Sébastian Mercier was an early time travel writer born in Paris in 1740. Mercier's L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais (translated into English as Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred) is a utopian novel set in the year 2440. "Who could resist the temptation to participate in such a thought experiment? And once engaged in it, who could fail to see that it exposed the rottenness of the society before his eyes, the Paris of the eighteenth century?" writes Robert Darnton, in The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France. Who indeed? As I get used to the strange world around me, I could say the same for 2010. Simon and I are back in Amsterdam, where we have met the odd lot at the Church of Aum, a ragbag collection of stoned old hippies, who meet to drink psychedelic substances and also to engage in a bit of time travel, at least on the spiritual plane. They only eat raw food, and believe that there will be a great cosmic shift in 2012. Their leader is an American runaway with a shady past, who looks like a clone of Osho that had a fight with a biblical prophet in a DNA lab. A touch scary and prone to fits of rage, he believes that "they," by which he means a curious mix of space aliens and American federal agents, as well as the Government, have us all firmly under their control. Our only hope lies in some other aliens who will arrive in 2012 in UFOs and put all to rights again, and set us on the path to enlightenment. In the meantime all we have to do is get stoned, say Aum, and pass the joints around. It's all a bit of harmless fun, or at least so I thought until Simon introduced me to Bill, an English guy who had had a huge falling out with the leader of the sect, known as Aum Baba. Bill told me a rather creepy tale that was partly another 9/11 conspiracy story, only this time with the Mossad and those bad old Zionists in the driving seat. He then went on to talk about another planned terrorist attack on America in December 2012, perhaps a bit far fetched for my taste. The day after, yesterday afternoon, he was pulled out of the Herengracht in Amsterdam, dead.

August 11, 2010

The door in the wall that never was

If you don't know where you came from, where you are going is also a bit of a mystery. I found the door in the wall. It was in the chapel, behind the corner dedicated to the Virgin. Dark old wood, probably oak, and rather small, hardly visible simply because it looks so ordinary, and the blue and white Virgin catches all your attention. The door was open and led into the rose garden, through a short tunnel, which was odd, as the rose garden is quite a distance from the chapel. Even odder was that I ended up somewhere else on the way back. In the room next to the library to be precise, looking at the time machine. Going back through the door again, I ended up getting totally lost and came out in the middle of nowhere. It was cold. There was snow on the ground. The chateau had vanished. There were no vineyards, just a dark forest. Returning into the tunnel I must have fallen asleep, and woke up on my sleeping mat back in the chapel. The door had vanished. Where it was there was now just a stone wall.

Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
On summer nights, star of stars,
Orion's Dog they call it, brightest
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat
And fevers to suffering humanity. Homer - Iliad

Image of Sirius A and Sirius B taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

August 3, 2010

No mo wordes...nuff said

And yif we wil ententifly preie for getyng of goodes, lat us crie, outher with worde or with thought or with desire, nought elles, ne no mo wordes...Cloud of Unknowing

Aye! No mo wordes. Two weeks without them did me a world of good. I dreamed of a door in the wall of the chapel at Chateau Madeleine, and this morning, as I awoke, I saw a note from Monsieur Bateleur to say I should look for the door in the wall. It reminded me of the short story by H.G. Wells. There is an inscription on the wall of the chapel. It says, "La source est dans le mur." The source is in the wall. Is there a secret door to another world, perhaps a world in which I know who I am? Do I need to know? I have everything I need. The past two weeks of silence and solitude have left me feeling it would be better to move forward and forget the past, or rather my lack of a past. As long as it does not creep up on me while I am asleep. Life is cryptic. Sorry, I had to say that after sleeping for two weeks next to a crypt. A crypt with a name, Alphonse LeMat.

July 17, 2010

Unknowing myself - Sarayu Jones is under deconstruction

"This much is certain: when a man is happy, happy to the core and root of beatitude, he is no longer conscious of himself or anything else." Meister Eckhart

"And so I urge you, go after experience rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full of labor, but love, full of rest." Cloud of Unknowing

Unknowing comes easy to someone who has lost their memory. For the next two weeks I am going to spend my days and nights quietly in the chapel of Chateau Madeleine. I shall sleep on a Therm-a-Rest Z mat in a lightweight sleeping bag and drink plenty of water with cayenne pepper and lemon juice. For breakfast I'll eat some organic muesli soaked overnight in the cayenne pepper water. For the rest of the day I'll be fasting. I have left instructions not to be disturbed, and in two weeks time I shall post the results of my meditations.

July 14, 2010

The map is not the territory

Today I went to see my psychologist in Paris. On the train I tried a thought experiment. In my imagination I made a map of myself, using the limited information at my disposal. To understand the map I realized that I needed another map, and to understand that map I needed another, and so on, ad infinitum. Self knowledge seemed impossible. Too many pieces of the map were missing. While talking to my psychologist, I decided to leave out the time machine next to the library, and my apparition (or hallucination?), just in case she got the wrong impression. After all, the map is not the territory, and I am only just beginning to realize that my life is not quite as it seems. Chateau Madeleine has many facets, some of them rather strange. Like my maps it seems to have much that is hidden below the surface. My psychologist gave me some standard tests. It seems that I have a vivid imagination, as well as a good grasp of logical symbols and numbers. None of the association tests revealed anything about my past. There seems to be a part of me that I have locked away, and I do not have the key.

July 13, 2010

Vajrayogini for breakfast and a postcard delivered by time machine

This week I have an appointment with my psychologist in Paris, to discuss my memory loss. She will be happy to hear that I am getting lots of fresh air, good food and exercise in the country, although I don't think that it will be a good idea to tell her that there is a time machine below my bedroom. There is a spooky side to this beautiful chateau, or perhaps my unconscious is playing tricks with me. Last night I swear I saw an apparition in the hallway outside my bedroom. It was a woman dressed in blue and white, with long dark hair. She looked at me, then turned around the corner and vanished. This morning when I awoke there was a rolled up silk painting next to my bed. It was a painting of Vajrayogini, in the center of a mandala. Next to it was a card that read, "To Sarayu with love, Monsieur B." Has the mysterious Monsieur Bateleur returned from his voyage? He was not at breakfast, and Simon has not seen him. The painting looks quite old and original.

The star is a symbol of the alchemical union of male and female, red and white, although the picture belongs to the tantric tradition of Naropa. Four points of the star have triple energy vortexes. Is this a hint of some force that is connected to the time machine? The same symbol is on the machine's red leather seat, without the goddess in the middle. Could Monsieur Bateleur be a time traveler?