MVC Podcast 12: New Ancient Land & Palace Three [01:41:49] March 5th, 2023 How a 27th-century mainstream-underground mystery school accidently led to the creation of Clara.  or  or listen through     or the RSS feed. Today I’ll be reciting and breaking down the chapter called “New Ancient Land” from “The Multiverse Cartographer,” as well as “Palace Three” which is the second to last chapter of “Smaller Mouse.” New Ancient Land consists of many “Palaces,” and Palace Three is one of them. It’s not necessarily the most important Palace, overall, but it is probably the most pertinent to some of the over-arching ideas of the story, those being Empire, war, and things like that. Before I get started reading the chapter, just a bit of review. In the “Timelines” chapter, we learned that in Greg’s 2100, “Pacifist Lincolns establish the first Free Worlds in the Dark Web, and New Ancient Land.” The chapters we’ve been reading lately are all happening in 2656. So, at the time we are reading about, the Palaces of New Ancient Land are already 556 years old, as well-established as, for example, the presence of Europeans in the Americas. More so, in fact, since Columbus was about 530 years ago, just to give you an idea of the time scales we’re looking at here. At that time, The Dark Web is, among other things, the default home for anyone wanting to operate in digital space outside of the watchful eye of The New World Empire. So, we know that New Ancient Land is off the grid, illegal, and established by Pacifist Lincolns, spiritual descendants of the hacker activists who no doubt occupied whatever the equivalent of Wall Street was in their universe about 90 years prior. Also, from that one line, we know that the first Free Worlds, like the one where Blythe has her apartment in Seneca Village, were established at the same time as New Ancient Land. Further review, remember last time Charles Reuben, prompted by Clara, suggested to Charles the Grey and Blythe that they utilize the first three Palaces of New Ancient Land as a means of deprogramming Simon in order to rescue him, in order to keep the other Lincolns off their backs. So, we know that, at least at this time, the Palaces aren’t directly used for deprogramming Drones for the purpose of rescuing them, but we also know from the deleted scene from The Cutting Room Floor, that conversation between Blythe and Charles the Grey, that after Blythe was freed from her ten years as a Drone, she underwent the trials of the first five palaces of New Ancient Land. So, it’s normal for a recently freed ex-Drone to go to the Palaces, but not for someone who is currently under arrest to have their links rerouted directly to The Palaces as part of their rescue effort. Enough with the review, I will now get to it. Without further ado: NEW ANCIENT LAND “I am a feather in the wind. I am the wind and I am the feather. I am the source and I am the destination. I am Here Now.” a Palace One mantra The following is an incomplete account of the teachings and practices of “New Ancient Land,” the spiritual hub of the “Free Worlds” in the alternate or simulated reality of what has come to be called “The New World Empire universe” or “The Henry the 9th universe.” The processes, teachings, and descriptions of The Palaces of New Ancient Land are kept in strict secrecy in that universe. Charles Reuben gained access to some of it through direct and indirect experience, and shared it in his journals. It is not a word-for-word account, as one can deduce from the fact that the style of English it is written in is not consistent with the standard English of that universe. Charles Reuben makes the point that the secrecy of their teachings is very much wrapped up in the secrecy of the Free Worlds themselves, which was necessary for the survival of those who lived outside of The New World Empire’s influence. Since The Resistance had a beginning and an end in every version of that universe which Charles Reuben explored, and since Charles Reuben was sharing it not with The New World Empire of Greg’s 2100-2684 but, rather, with aspiring Multiverse Cartographers like yourself, he reasoned that his vows of secrecy did not apply. Further, he did not personally, directly, share the information. However, he did write it in his journals knowing full-well that his journals would eventually become the foundation of Multiverse Cartography. So, with all of that in being clear, here is all of the information we have about The Palaces of New Ancient Land, as passed down to us through the writings of Charles Reuben: Palace One The one who introduced Charles the Grey to the Palaces of New Ancient Land was Jobe. Jobe is best known for his role in establishing communication between the Free Worlds on Earth and the early Reticulan-Human rural communities on the then newly terraformed Venus in Greg’s 2463. Another thing that is said about Jobe is something that most people who hear about it refuse to believe, but it is something that I have personally verified, and that is that Jobe lived for 213 Earth-years. According to most Shamans of New Ancient Land, Jobe was an avatar of a young god who himself was the product of a union between primordial deities of good and evil. This is pretty far out, but I thought I should record it here, as it is a commonly held belief, and might help explain his superhuman longevity. One final note about Jobe is that Charles the Grey loved and respected him as a guru, and claimed that the secret of The Interdimensional Coffeehouse came in the form of a mysterious Rectangle which Jobe had imparted to him with his dying breath. In Greg’s 2555, Jobe introduced Charles the Grey to the first Palace of New Ancient Land. I had the privilege of meeting with Charles the Grey several times during my travels. The following is what I recall from his description of his first experience there: After a period of total sensory deprivation focusing solely on breath, Charles the Grey began to hear mutterings. They were the same mutterings all Venusians felt and heard on a semi-conscious level, the thoughts and feelings from the Humans on Earth. The mutterings were strange and familiar. There were many pitches and many vibrations, some of them harmonious, others discordant. Overall, their collective voice was apathetic, self-critical, and depressed. It seemed to announce itself in the void as something separate from Charles the Grey, an after-thought after some primal realization. Charles the Grey called it ‘The Gooey Bubble of Graven Images’. Its many colors, dull and mixing, appeared as complex figures swimming, floating, and bumping into itself in a sack floating somewhere in the void. Charles the Grey was then suddenly overcome by a blinding flash appearing above him. He turned his attention toward it, and it became what he described as ‘The Shaft’. It was a great column of light, a thick almost tornado-like cord. He also described it as a ‘Bridge’ from here to there, wherever here and there are. Also, a ‘Circuit’, implying an inherent relationship between ‘here’ and ‘there’. This beam from the source downward became fixed, permanent. This infinite white light bled rays of brilliant color out into the void, brighter the closer they were to the beam, becoming more like the colors of the rainbow further out. It was both a voice and a light, sound and vision as one experience. Then, he saw sparks of color coming off of these rays or branches, and each spark was a letter, or a number. Some of them he recognized, others he didn’t. Every Human alphabet, character, glyph, and numeral was included. These individual letters and symbols of various colors faded away as soon as they moved away from the central spiraling column of light. He noted that, on the column, no two letters ever came together into a word. Far below, near the Gooey Bubble, the letters did come together into words, and the words came together into sentences telling all stories. He told me, “Most of it was bullshit, but there was some cool stuff written there too.” Then, all at once, The Gooey Bubble was shattered by the Shaft, dissolved and disintegrated, and everything around him was grey. The Shaft was also gone, “having served its purpose,” he said. All that was left was the witness, the observer, the one behind the thoughts, emotions, memories, considerations, biases, and name. Before that day he was called ‘Charles’. After that experience, he began introducing himself as ‘Charles the Grey’. Outwardly, the name was to honor his Reticulan side but, privately, the name was a continual reminder to himself of the experience he’d had just before he was permitted to enter Palace One of New Ancient Land. After Charles the Grey introduced Blythe to Palace One of New Ancient Land, she returned to her Free World apartment. This was before her physical body had recovered, back in Greg’s 2652. There, she wrote the following, not wanting to forget the experience. Later, when she awoke in the real world, she wrote it down there as well: Veils of illusion the emanations from emanations, wrap themselves away. Veils of illusion rays of One appear as sparks to themselves and other spark-like rays. Veils of illusion receive the Always colors and make Never Before permutation pictures in many places ways and spaces and all stays etched in the veils to be recalled by the, sometimes forgetful, spark-like rays both accurately and inaccurately, neither truly nor falsely, for the rays to play in so many ways and Always is there Never Not an infinite number of unthought of unmanifested permutations of veils of illusion which will yet come to temporarily ensnare and liberate spark-like rays. The Aware One by way of one ray or another or many may touch directly and merge in a moment with one or many of the spark-like rays DIRECTLY but those who create a boundary within the realm of veils won’t acknowledge the contact without a supplementary veil, a word or symbol, or a feeling, taste, smell, touch, sound, or memory recall trigger. And so it is that the Awake One by way of One Ray wields veils of illusion in such patterns as to entice and to free the forgotten ones from their veil cocoon slumber. WAKE UP! I’ll stop reading here for now and talk a bit about what we’ve just read. First, we can notice that there are basically three levels of voice. There is the text-book narration voice, then the presumably very old accounts of Charles Reuben, and his recordings of the words of Blythe, Charles the Grey, and Simon. There’s also mention of these records being in our familiar common modern English, as opposed to the K’jev, or “King James Version” English which is normally spoken by Blythe, Charles the Grey, and Simon. Subtextually, this is shrugged off as Charles Reuben’s having put it into his own words for some reason. Metatextually, I made this choice because the often poetic words are already difficult to decipher, and I thought that burying them one level deeper by converting it all to Shakespearean would make it all needlessly incoherent. For the sake of world-building, and knowing which universe we’re in, I wanted to stay pretty consistent with the K’jev English, but for something like this, I kept it as it was when I wrote in in 1999 and 2003. “I am a feather in the wind. I am the wind and I am the feather.” Immediately we’re jolted into a non-dual perspective. No questions remain, if this line is accepted as truth, save perhaps, “from whence?” or “whitherfore?” The wind is chaotic, from our perspective, we know not whence nor whither it cometh nor goeth, right? So, the path of the feather is also chaotic, and very much determined by its environment, though a little bit determined by its shape and size. Yet, our concept of self is anchored in both the feather and the wind, as opposed to being just the feather crying out, “why, oh wind?!” when we find ourselves someplace undesirable, or on our knees offering thanks to the wind when we end up someplace more desirable. One thing I feel I should mention, that I’ve already alluded to but not really drawn attention to, is this: The Palaces of New Ancient Land, at least in the 27th century, may not be solely for the purpose or re-orienting ex-Drones, but it is a large part of their function in this underground society. So, things like “you are a being, at once one with, and apart from operating within a greater universe,” and in Palace Two, “you have a body that eats and drinks, you have to work to survive in the world,” and things like that may seem like very basic lessons to you and I, but imagine what the world must be like for someone who has been a Drone for so long they forgot what real like was like? Moving on, “I am the source, I am the destination, I am Here Now.” You can take this in two ways. One is a list of three separate things times and places we are identifying as “self.” The other, is that we are merging these four things, self, source, destination, and present time. When I wrote these, they were intended to be reflected on and contemplated, rather than analyzed and dissected as I am now. In some ways, they’re better left unexplained. Next we have, in the textbook voice, a paraphrasing of Charles Reuben’s point about secrecy. There is a little bit of real-world allegory here. On my podcast called “The Esoterinerd Podcast” for example, I’ve shared many things which traditionally are meant to be kept secret. I’ve made the point on there that, not very long ago, a person could be arrested and even executed for talking about magic, mysticism, or even Christian doctrine if it’s not fully in line with the powers that were at the time, be it Inquisition era Europe or especially Goa India, or the witch-burning times in the US. As a result, magical societies are very secretive. It’s this tradition of cowering in fear for one’s life that forms the basis of the secretive nature of Freemasonry, or of initiatory systems like the Golden Dawn. Now, there are counter-arguments to be made, not everyone can be trusted with this powerful powerful knowledge, nonsense like that, but I’ll leave it to you go write all that in the comments if you’d like. It’s not the argument I’m making. It’s the argument I’m disregarding as utter foolishness. Moving along, we arrive at Charles the Grey’s experience of Palace One of New Ancient Land. We learn a bit about Jobe. Now, you and I already know this stuff, though it gives a lot of specific numbers of years and such, plus the idea that the Shamans, the overseers of the Palaces, all know, or “believe” that Jobe is who you and I know he actually is, the avatar of Luke and all. We covered this in the video called “Jobe” in which we read the chapter of “Smaller Mouse” by that name and a lot of bonus material from the fourth section of “The New World Empire & The Interdimensional Coffeehouse.” For people who hadn’t read all that, I covered it a bit here in this chapter. So, Jobe is best known for his role in Teilhard’s White Bird heist and trip to Venus where he established contact with the Venusians on behalf of the Rebels. Also, Jobe lived to be 213 years old, which was the age he was in the previous recital when he gave Charles the Grey the mysterious Rectangle with his dying breath. Before all that, in 2555, when Jobe was 115 and Charles the Grey was 24, Jobe introduced Charles the Grey to Palace One of New Ancient Land. Next we have Charles the Grey’s experience of Palace One. Again, I don’t know how much I can say, analyze, or pick apart. It is meant to stand on its own. I have a feeling some people might brush past this whole chapter quickly, looking for something that forwards what they perceive to be the plot. I’ve come to accept that this story just isn’t for Mrs. Brunke, and I think that’s okay. I know there are people for whom this book is. If Charles the Grey’s experience of Palace One sounds familiar, then you’ve likely either read “Taco,” “The Small Grey Mouse,” or you know me personally. I took an experience that I had after sitting in Gordon’s living room all night meditating in silence, and I incorporated it here as Charles the Grey’s experience of Palace One. One thing I added in 2022 when compiling it was the bit about everything being grey at the end, and that being the secret reason why his name is Charles the Grey. This is reflective of my own experience. After I saw the rainbow colored shaft shoot downward from the bright light and obliterate what I’d termed “the gooey bubble of graven images,” I decided to commemorate the experience by giving myself the name “Words from Silence” as my secret name to be given once I was initiated into the Second Order of the Golden Dawn. This tower-card reminiscent spirit-blast vision happened for me in the grade of Portal, the grade just before this re-naming. Verba Ex Silencio was how I would eventually translate it into bastardized vulgar Latin, nodding a bit in David Lynch’s direction with the Spanish flare. For the one or two people who are currently shocked beyond belief that I would share my Inner Order motto publicly let me just say, Corpus… Vinculum! Inside joke. Sort of. I think that’s enough about that, the vision I think speaks for itself, and if I tried, even with the best of intensions, to explain “why” the letter-sparks were letters and never came together into a word until it reached the bottom, or “why” they were each one of many colors and faded into darkness as they moved away from the spark, I think I would do an extreme disservice to the poetry of the image, and indeed to the vision itself. Now, almost a hundred years after Charles the Grey has his first experience of Palace One, he brings Blythe there and she has hers. She commemorates it in the form of a poem, to try to kind of remember what the state of mind, or the experience, was like. Now, since this was the 20 year old Edward who originally wrote the poem, I thought it might be appropriate to call on a parallel universe version of myself who still kind of exists is that same state of consciousness, though having lived another 24 years after having written it, and see if he wouldn’t mind giving us his perspective on the “Veils of Illusion” poem. Yeah, sure! That was something that I wrote in 1999. This is an example of shoving the truth down the throat of the reader, but later I framed it as something that Blythe wrote down after she experienced Palace One of New Ancient Land. She wrote this down so that she'd remember what she learned there, but I think at that time I was trying to make her into like a Super-Heroine. So, these were meant to be like accepted as holy words by some future epoch or something. Over the years the whole story, and kind of the assumptions behind the story, kind of came into a different perspective. Even at the time that I wrote it, I remember reading it to Gordon and he had like some very basic theological disagreements with my whole “everything is one thing.” To me, it was very important. I think I was trying to reconcile monotheism with polytheism, and science and reason and atheism, like trying to trying to create a philosophy, or at least a poem, that could kind of touch on all of it and, I mean, I think at the time that I wrote it I was trying to perceive it as truth, and my dad talked about this in “Transformations,” when you're “trying” to “understand” and so you're creating like verbal or mathematical formulas that you think are going to, you know, this is the answer this is it. Another level to it is, now I don't know what scripture this comes from, I think it was Kanchan in Nepal that told me that the whole “all is maya” thing, that was Shiva's point, and Parvati disagreed and thought that your body and the world and your life and all of these sorts of things are actually important, the things that that seem solid really are solid. The thing is it was an argument, and nobody won the argument, so it's an oversimplification to say, for example, that Hindu philosophy, or Eastern or Indian philosophy, “believes” something like this poem. It's kind of one side of it for sure, but there's a lot of different sides of it. It's like picking some random, you know, ancient Greek philosopher like the guy that thought everything was different forms of water. It would definitely be an error to say that that's what Western philosophy thinks, because you know obviously that covers everything from Aquinas to Kant to even old what's-her-name with her shrugging “altruism is evil” thing, you know, could be considered, could be, *could* be optionally, very optionally, be considered among the philosophies of what they term “The West.” With all of those qualifiers in place, I'll go ahead and, you know, talk about the words that Blythe wrote in their own context, without adding any more negating qualifiers or disclaimers or, you know, this isn't necessarily really reality, I'm not actually putting this forth as a this is, what I think is going on, but I think it's a very nice allegory and metaphor and explanation, I just don't think it's necessarily necessary, you know what I mean? But it might be a good step or a good, you know, hat to try on for a while to get from one place to another, to get from the place of I have a reality perception that's been put upon me by others in my youth, and I want to get to a point where I can perceive and establish my own reality parameters or, you know, whatever in whatever light in whatever context, it might be useful to go by way of a sort of deconstructing like pouring mercury, you know, Alchemy, you put stuff together and then you pour mercury on it and it melts, and once it like melts or falls apart or dissolves you can make something out of it of your own design, or of your choosing. The other thing about it is that this is her notes on Palace One and in this chapter, and in the part we're going to get to next, or that he's going to get to next… One of us, for sure. Anyway, you go over a little bit of Palace Two and a little bit of Palace Three, so in a sense these numbers are important, so Palace One could be seen as a meditation on One, where Palace Two is about the relationship between yourself and your environment, so it's basically Two, and then Palace Three is where there's you, your environment, and other people, and that's the one we're going to get to next, so we'll get to find out what these mysterious Palaces of New Ancient Land have to offer as far as a meditation on One, a meditation on Two, and a meditation on Three, with Two we get kind of a “oh, basically it was like this, this happened,” with one we don't get the experience ourselves, but we get the writings of Blythe and Charles the Grey after having gone through it themselves so we can maybe triangulate and get an idea of what Palace One must have been like. Veils of Illusion, the emanations from emanations, wrap themselves away. So, the Moon card, ruled by Pisces, not to be confused with the High Priestess card, ruled by the moon, has two esoteric titles: “Lord of Flux and Reflux,” and “Child of the Sons of the Mighty,” and looking at all of the esoteric titles for all of the major Arcana of the tarot, it's the only grandchild, it's the only case where there's a child of a child, and it's the card that rules kind of dreams and nightmares and intuition, imagination, and sort of the back of a neck, you know. So, the closest we get to surrounding ourselves with something of our own creation is to have it programmed and implanted by others on the subconscious, or by oneself and one's repetitions of thoughts and patterns and ideas, and through concentration you can bury things deep within yourself, or just through regular accidental usage become obsessed with something for a few years and be focused on it every day and, lo and behold, you're dreaming about it and it's kind of going on on a deeply unconscious level, like the consciousness being like the tip of the iceberg or the just like a little piece of ice floating on the surface of the ocean, where the subconscious is the ocean and everything inside of it, basically. So the emanations from emanations wrap themselves away, we're the emanations, but we're also what's being emanated, what you're seeing and hearing is the playing back of a recording of the reflection of an emanation of who we all really are. Veils of Illusion, rays of One appear as sparks to themselves and other spark-like rays. I don't know if I can do a good example, yeah, I think I can. Can you see that? No, you cannot. I'm not going to light my book on fire. Okay, so the idea is ray, geometry, rays, sun rays like, you know, when you see the sun. Yeah, like that, you know light rays. So, the light ray obviously has its source, and in a way the only actual place where it is. I mean, obviously, it shines out from the source, but light in its own mind, if it had one, is not moving it's actually in all those places simultaneously. So, a ray in geometry is a line that goes on forever in one direction, but not in the other direction, it has like a point that it starts from and then goes in one direction. So, a ray of the sun, and a ray itself, all have that origin point, but in this allegory we're not talking about the sun, we're talking about the One. So, the sun is born, lives, and dies. The sun is a big burning ball of gas, but we're using it as a metaphor and we're talking about the One, so what we're saying here is that the ray when it hits the veil it makes a little dot, and the dot, or the ray, or the One casting the ray, says, “I am a dot,” and looks around and sees a bunch of other dots, and then interacts with the dots, and competes with the dots and, you know, organizes with the dots, and has conversations with the dots, and records video abstract poetry and, you know, broadcasts it to the other dots. So, rays of one appear as sparks to themselves and other spark-like rays. Right? We're all here? Veils of Illusion receive the always colors and make never before permutation pictures. Right. The always colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Now, some folks can go into a “well, yeah, but what if what you're seeing as red is what I’m seeing as blue?” and it's like, “yeah, cool. That's not what we're talking about right now, but good stuff, good stuff.” Yeah, so the always colors, these are the always colors, basically but there's also every shade of grey and brown and everything in between, and subtle shades of near black. The veils, whether we're talking about the retina, come here doggy, do you want to be famous? Hey. Look at the camera. Yeah, there you go, there you go, yeah. Famous doggy. These veils we're talking about, you know, the mind, talking about recordings, talking about doggy minds, we're talking about eyes, we're talking about veils, we're talking about the apocalypse, apocalypse means rending of the veil, the bride wears a veil at the wedding so we're talking about the wedding, we're talking about the Alchemical Wedding, and we're talking about the Sufi/Songs of Solomonian metaphor of created souls in bodies as bride, and uncreated unknowable source of all existence as bridegroom. So the veil, the always colors get captured on the veil in many permutations that have never been seen before, always new, there's always an infinite number of unthought of unmanifested permutations in many places ways and spaces and all stays etched in the veils to be recalled by the sometimes forgetful spark-like rays, at least while we have memory. I was talking about the akashic record, and trying, you know, like the way this kind of reads is like “this is Truth about you,” you know? It's kind of, like, rude, you know? I mean it's or it's trying to like act like some kind of some kind of spiritual or religious doctrine. I'm speaking as a 44-year-old uh criticizing something I wrote when I was 20. All stays etched in the veils to be recalled by the sometimes forgetful spark-like rays both accurately and inaccurately, neither truly nor falsely. I mean, for practical purposes, some things are true and some things are false, when you're operating on this level and you're trying to like you know find out if the killer did it, right? You know like when you're on this most basic kind of tile floor, you know, practical level dealing with situations in life then, sure yeah, there's true and false but what this is talking about is when you're remembering your past lives when you're, you know, entering into a realm that's unprovable, unverifiable by others, that only you've seen it, and then when you think back about it it's not quite the same as it was when you were experiencing it. So, when it comes to memory it's not a matter of true or false, it's kind of a matter of degree of false or true. So, yeah, for the rays to play in so many ways and always is there never not an infinite number of unthought of unmanifested permutations of veils of Illusions which will yet come to temporarily ensnare and liberate spark-like rays. See, that's the good news, is whatever it is, whatever form it is, whatever shape it is, whatever language it's in, whatever knots it ties and unties with the order in which the words are arranged, and however they've been interpreted and by whom for however many centuries, all these things ensnare but ultimately liberate spark-like rays, rays of One that are appearing as sparks but are actually rays, and truly actually the origin point itself, right? Like I said, is it useful? I don't know, it might be for some, for a while, but also it can be a kind of madness. It can be, it can be. It sort of depends on how one deals with it, or what conclusions one draws from it, this state of abstract sort of deconstruction. I mean, it's like it presupposes that the deconstruction has already happened, and it reconstructs, or constructs, just a little bit like a bare, you know, backbone structure of sort of a way of relating with, a way of relating with whatever, you know, between the other and the self, whatever those are, the idea of this guy versus this was sort of like, oh! You know, like there was the veil was lifted, if you will, a little bit on the mirror trick that that is. Like, if you're standing in a hall of mirrors, you’re not actually standing in a hall of mirrors, you're not looking down a hallway of mirrors, you're looking at a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, but if you stand in that hall of mirrors long enough then, and you don't touch the mirror, and the mirror is clean enough, then you might start to think that there's a million of you, right? Some call it solipsism, but it depends on how you take it, like I said, you can approach it at various tones just like you can approach anything at various tones, you know, using the Hubbardian tone scale the idea of, “it just it all goes round and round, and it's the same old thing every day,” that's one tone, or you could say, “it all goes round and round, and it's the same thing every day,” or you can be like, “it all goes round and round!” you see what I'm saying? Like so whatever the basic philosophy, you know, may be you can approach it with very little dopamine, or you can try to approach it outside of the experience of brain chemistry, or you can, you know, experience it with more dopamine I guess, I don't know. The aware one, who obviously the author would be able to recognize or maybe even be, being the 19-year-old know-it-all, or 20 or whatever. The aware one, by way of one ray or another, many or it says or many may touch directly. When Laila read that out and I edited it, that line became by way of one ray or another many may touch directly, but originally it was by way of one ray, one person, one expression, one, you know, ray of the One, or another, or many, by way of however many rays the aware one wants, it may touch other sparks, I guess, directly. It seems like a like a bulldozer that's just meant to scoop up your sense of individual identity and take it all away to some kind of new age conspiracy, but it's not, it's just, or maybe it is, but it was just a poem I wrote and then made it into something that a fictional character wrote after having the experience of a fictional, you know, religious experience in a place called Palace One of New Ancient Land so, you know, don't worry too much. But it does, I mean the psychedelic experience, depending on the set, setting and substance, it can have a bulldozing effect for sure, and I was in a, you know, a sort of “all is one but it looks like many because it's rays and they're all different colors,” you know, that was the basic, I mean it's a perhaps an oversimplification of Golden Dawn, but that's the general idea of it, the Rose Cross lamen and all, so add to that LSD and you get poetry like this. It’s just math, really. The aware one by a way of one ray or another, perhaps even your cult leader, or you. See? It's like, is it useful? Is it is it useful if it can be so easily and quickly like twisted and for the benefit of something terrible, right? …or many may touch directly, and merge in a moment, see “merge” these the illusion of individual sparks that fizzle out, these little dots that are actually rays of the One, can merge. It's like, were you in the mood when you started reading the poem to have something come in and tell you that oh you're all just you know interchangeable and you can merge and you can, you know, make you realize, wake up and realize, that everything you've ever worked for and built to, you know, as a legacy or who you are or what your name means or all of that it's all just… like, a little rude. Parvati might disagree, that's all I'm saying. …with one or many of the spark-like rays directly, but those who create a boundary, because there isn't one naturally, you put it there, those who create a boundary within the realm of veils, if you have put a veil intentionally, or accidentally, or you thought you were supposed to, if you have created a veil to separate yourself from everything else, and you've created the idea of that veil out of images forms sounds names and words that exist within and are ultimately from the veils, then we're talking about you, right? Basically. So, those who create a boundary within the realm of veils won't acknowledge the contact, see it's because of your education that you're not just accepting me into your third eye right now, right? He says facetiously, like is that what this is getting at, that's the kind of thing like “what?” you know, “what are you doing?” and, I mean, I get it. It was well-meaning at the time, I think, but in my old age I have a, you know, one or two words to say about it obviously, because somewhere in my mind I've been contemplating these words some specific words that I wrote 24 years ago and developing opinions and layers of interpretations and ideas about them, but at the time I think I was just like, “yeah this is this is it I'm going to put, you know, like all this truth with a capital T into a poem that reads like stereo instructions, and that'll solve all our problems, right? No. It's just something Blythe wrote to herself in her journal to remind her about what the experience of Palace One of New Ancient Land, don't forget. Um, yes. So, they won't acknowledge the contact without a supplementary veil, a word, or symbol, or feeling, taste, smell, touch, sound, or sensory recall trigger, so the symbol of the cross, and the host, and eating it, how it tastes, the wine, the sound, the incense, you know, all that, or whatever it is for you or for whoever, a sort of go-between, I mean you don't go to the thing itself so you go through some elaborate thing that it, like, in some way or another, sometimes, when you're half-asleep on Christmas or whatever, you know, relates to something beyond kind of the superego of itself, which is just basically the collective agreement for how society should operate, and how you should be, and how you should think, and what you should do, and what you should think is important, and all that. And so it is that the awake one, which we presume is the author of the poem, so don't forget we're talking about me here. Yes, and so it is that the awake one by way of one ray capital O capital R (hint it's me). No, I think it's implying that, like, Blythe really has kind of like looks up to Charles the Grey right now, and I think she's talking about him, right? And so it is that the awake one by, because he just rescued her from prison, and now he's showing her in the Palaces of New Ancient Land while her body is recovering in the Subways of 27th century New York, right? Obviously, New World Center, excuse me. So it is that the awake one, by way of one ray, whoever it is. Jesus? Sure. Buddha. Muhammad, uh-huh. Let’s go! It’s The The, it’s called “Armageddon Days Are Here Again,” it’s a good song, you should check it out sometime. The awake one wields, by way of one ray, veils of Illusions in such patterns as to entice and to free the forgotten ones from their veilcocoon slumber. Wake up! A 20-year-old in 1999 wrote that. Forgotten ones. For gotten. Before, they were gotten. Maybe, right? Or re-membered, to put the pieces back together, members of the body, the members of the group, to put the pieces of yourself back together, to put the pieces of Osiris back together, whatever. So, we're talking about a kind of artist. Originally, Charles the Grey was an artist, and he ends up becoming, you know, like a revolutionary hero, but he didn't mean to, or he did it out of a sense of curiosity and a spirit of exploration, thrill seeking almost. He wanted to get out and see what all was going on, and the other Venusians thought he was something was wrong with him, and then she was to be a violent activist, and then she gets arrested, and they meet, so the two of them meet, it's a conversation between these two people, they can be two people going on in one person's head right now, and he values her freedom. He sticks to his ideals. She asks him, “what should I do,” basically and he's not going to tell her not to do what she's going to do, what he knows she's going to do because of who she is. He's not going to tell her to do something else, be someone else, be a pacifist like me, he says whatever you do, I support you. It's very nice, right? I mean, it's not like he actually has any, she was voluntarily putting him in the position of the decider of her fate by giving him that much respect and asking him what she should do, not “what do you think I should do,” “what should I do.” Basically that's “Veils of Illusion.” I think I covered it. So, uh, back to you, Edward in Delhi. Thank you very much! A very thorough examination on a lot of levels. All right, well, I hope it helped. Enjoy the rest of your day, Edward. Okay, you too. He and I were the same person up until December of 2021 we had our Original Divergent Incident, but I like to keep in touch with him, see how things might have gone. Anyway, returning to “New Ancient Land,” picking up right where we left off: Palace Two The following is an account of ‘Blue Bird’ Simon Schwartz’s experience of Palace Two: I walked into a large room. A bearded man in a Tuxedo and a top hat directed me to sit at a large wooden table. With his right hand, he motioned toward a space on the left side of the table. My left, I mean. Two glasses appeared there. The first was short and wide like a bowl, but with a stem like a wine glass. The second was thin like a test tube, also with a stem. He held his white gloved hands like he was presenting it. It seemed a little silly, but his face was deadly serious, so I dared not laugh. Then he waved his hand over them, and in the bowl-shaped container appeared a long piece of something pointed on either end, almost like a banana. It was smooth and white, and sparkled like dew on grass. In the thin glass there appeared a light blue fluid. The man picked up the first container, and held it before me, telling me to smell it, which I did. It smelled like fresh bread. There was also a hint of chicken. I said, “It’s nice.” He picked up the second glass, the tall and thin one, and held it for me to smell. It was like herbal tea, and very clean water. I said, “Interesting.” With his left hand he motioned toward a space on the other side of the table, my right side. Instantly, another two dishes appeared there, of the same kind as the first. He did the hand thing again, presenting it, then waved his hand over them. Inside them there appeared, in the first, a long piece of something brown and pointed on either end. In the thin glass was a yellowish fluid. He picked up the first, and held it before me to smell, which I did. “That smells like shit!” I said, a bit surprised. He picked up the second, tall and thin, container and held it toward me to smell. Reluctantly, I smelled it. As I expected, it smelled like urine. “Okay...?” I said. The bearded man in the top hat then folded his hands under his chin, and said “Your body is the perfect alchemical laboratory, with which all others created by Human hands have failed to compare.” He motioned toward the glasses with the white and blue substances and said, “This represents the matter that is useful to you, which will help you grow, and remain in good health.” He motioned toward the brown and yellow, “This is the matter that is useless to you, which your alchemical laboratory, your body, expels. This is useful to the green life of the world, to help it grow and remain in good health.” I nodded, slowly. He continued, “Your blood is red. You do not need the matter on your right. Let it pass away from you, so that it can be used by others who are not like you, who have blood of green: Chlorophyl.” “Right… okay,” I said. “Learn the difference between these two!” he said sternly, with one hand over each pair of dishes. He went on. I began to wonder how much longer this would take. “When you look at a created thing of mixed value, claim your fair share of that which you can use to grow, and to remain healthy. Reject that which you do not need, so that the cycle of life may continue.” “Uh huh…” I said. Finally, he said, “You are ready, now, to enter the next chamber.” He motioned dramatically with his whole body to the door behind him, which I hadn’t seen before. I walked past him, thinking, ‘That was weird’, and passed through the door. Beyond the door was a kind of survival training. Simon spent several days in each of the various biomes, tundras, deserts, forests, and so on, as they were before Humans turned everything into habitats of steel and concrete. There, Simon experienced and learned to forge for food, fight to survive, and to find and build various kinds of shelters. I’ll pause here and say a few things. For one, I remember Gordon really hated that part. Not the survival training, but the lesson on “shit is bad, food is good.” Looking back, I hadn’t seen Jodorowsky’s “Holy Mountain” at the time, but I’m fairly certain that he had, because I remember him saying that it’s the shit that can be refined into gold, and that the whole thing was missing the point. I think we might have just been making different points. It wasn’t exactly “shit is bad” but rather “shit is good… for plants, but don’t eat it, you’ll get sick,” in the context of covering some very basic training for recently freed ex-Drones to learn the ins and outs of having a body. But, in truth, at the time I think I was trying to say something metaphorical or allegorical about spiritual or emotional or mental shit versus food and, on that level, I think that Gordon was right. Moving on. Charles the Grey was only 40 (25 Earth-years) when he first entered Palace Two. He allowed me to read many of his writings from that period, though he was a little embarrassed about them. He was more like 200 (120 Earth-years) by the time I knew him. He told me he’d had a very loose understanding of history back then, but that the writings were heavily influenced by the perspective he gained during his time in Palace Two. Basically the story goes that in Ancient times the Shaman interwove the tribe of farmers and scholars until the first Rebels left to form a second city, declared themselves emperors of all they surveyed, built a tower to heaven that got struck by lightning, and then everyone spoke different languages. Eventually, there was The New World Empire, who bred us here. In the machine the paradise is fluid, deceptive, trancelike, and expensive. Nothing is left to protest its total control over your neural net. Rebels are defined by who or what it is they reject. The ancient Rebels rejected a harmonious agrarian society, and a balance with nature, in favor of the way of greed and blindness which eventually became The New World Empire. Today when we use the word ‘Rebel’ we mean those who reject The New World Empire. Not all, but many of those who reject The New World Empire, such as The Lincolns, yearn for the Ancient ways. The story goes on to say that after the first Rebels left the Ancient Land, the first sons of their first sons became the first Kings. The Kings claimed to ‘own’ all the land conquered by the collective of them. Out of them arose a new kind of Rebel. They were awake, while their brothers and cousins were sleepwalking. They began to organize, to fight back, to tear down, to try to reform the society of greed and blindness into which they were born. Abraham Lincoln was the first of these to be remembered, though surely there were others whose deeds were erased from the collective memory of history. Soon after, during the formation of that Web of technology which now envelops us, Rebels wore Lincoln masks to hide their identities. They may have been the cousins of Royals, workers, or those rejected by society. Those with the knowledge of technology began to build a Free Web to operate within and alongside the Machine which would become the dwelling-place of Drones and manager-gods. If these heroes of old had not put so much energy into The Free Web, which The New World Empire calls ‘The Dark Web’, there would have been little to no hope for The Resistance, or for the Human Race centuries later. There would have been significantly less for Teilhard and the Rebels to offer my ancestors that day. In the Free Web, Venusians and Free Humans meet, and exchange ideas. It is transformative, and eye opening. Some of us attack the machine, but most of us ignore it. I, for example, am an Artist. Okay. So, this part was some of the very earliest writings toward the creation of The New World Empire universe. The universe itself started with an idea that Charles the Grey was a half-alien living on Venus in the future reflecting on the Earth and humanity from an outside perspective. It was only last year, at the end of 2022, that I decided to include these writings, since they are special and quite foundational to the whole story, but in the form of notes which Charles the Grey wrote after his experience of Palace Two, and that translated into modern conventional English by Charles Reuben. Since some of the details of this rant are different from the story that ended up being written in the end, and since the voice was that of, well, me in 2003, a bit immature and oversimplistic and generalized, I thought it would make sense as something he wrote when he was much younger than he is when we know him, and which he is a little embarrassed about. “Basically the story goes that in Ancient times the Shaman interwove the tribe of farmers and scholars until the first Rebels left to form a second city, declared themselves emperors of all they surveyed, built a tower to heaven that got struck by lightning, and then everyone spoke different languages. Eventually, there was The New World Empire, who bred us here.” Those are the words which first established The New World Empire universe. The idea being that back in the good old days, the Ancient Land of which New Ancient Land is meant to be an image, everything was fine. Garden of Eden, you know, some imagined utopia of way back when. Then, evil grandchildren of this perfect world got greedy and left the ancient land to seek out a world they’d like better. At that time, they were “Rebels” but they would become the foundation of what would eventually be called “Empire,” in which the new “Rebels” were those who wanted to go back to the way things were in the Ancient Land. Right? Because there’s only two choices. Right? Good, solid Mission Statement on the part of the Rebels, as clear as any solution anyone has come up with yet, surely. In the machine the paradise is fluid, deceptive, trancelike, and expensive, this is about the life of a Drone mostly. Nothing is left to protest its total control over your neural net. Charles the Grey mentions, briefly, some of the things we remember from the timeline, that Lincoln was a Rebel, other Rebels came later and named themselves after him, and they built the Free Worlds, right? We know this. This is key, “If these heroes of old had not put so much energy into The Free Web, which The New World Empire calls ‘The Dark Web’, there would have been little to no hope for The Resistance, or for the Human Race centuries later.” I had a friend who was a hacker, back then. By the time I really got to writing this we weren’t on speaking terms anymore, but I lived with him for a year, and we got up to some unethical behavior during that time, I’ll admit, and we smoked a lot of weed, dreamed up fantasies much like what would later manifest in the form of Occupy Wallstreet and all, and I tied it in with my vision of the future that I’d had years before on that rooftop on nutmeg. It wasn’t meant to condone any of the terrible things that go on in the shadows, or the stealing of money or identities, but it was meant to show that even bad things can yield good results. It’s debatable, I know. Did something good come out of the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, American Imperialism? It depends on your definition of “good,” of course, and definitely don’t ignore the bad. From this many centuries in the future, when Charles the Grey is writing, the people who live off-grid seem to think, or at least he thinks, of the hackers of our day as heroes, but the Empire considers them criminals. Feel free to comment below if you have any thoughts on all that. Some of us attack the machine, but most of us ignore it. I, for example, am an Artist. This is my heart’s gift for you. You can ignore the big evil biblical Babylon monster if you want to, and just live your life in a way which makes you happy. If the big grouchy Revelation Jesus thinks you’re luke-warm and spits you out, so be it. Welcome to the luke-warm. Hey, maybe there’s another layer to the meaning of the name of Luke, the god of which Jobe is an avatar. The way of Blythe is not the way of Charles the Grey, but they get along. She wants to tear the system down and start over with a new manifesto, Charles the Grey just wants to play on the internet and have fun. It’s okay to be like Charles the Grey. It’s okay to be like Blythe. That’s the idea. I mean, obviously, I’d ask that you not drag people out of their houses and shoot them like a Maoist, but if that’s your true will then, well. Still, please don’t. But Blythe can be your hero, you can fight the Empire passively, or actively, or you can fight it passively by walking away from it. One of the main over-arching morals of the story, if you’d like. Now, in this chapter called, “New Ancient Land,” there is one small paragraph left to read, but we’ve reached the point where the little Mickey Mouse is telling us to go read the chapter from “Smaller Mouse” called “Palace Three,” so, we’ll do that: PALACE THREE “The greatest trial of the Surrogate-Drone is boredom. How long have I been hither?” Blythe thought to herself in her partitioned memory. It was a trick that Surrogate-Drones used to allow themselves an internal monologue, in order to help preserve their sanity. “I feel myself think I am wasting time, that there is much to be done. Then I remember, each and every moment I spend here is a moment that he requires to learn to be free,” In her frontal, visible mind she monitored the progress of ten other Drones in their tasks, and reported it as raw data to the Manager-god so he could project it onto the surface of the building for the Red Birds to watch and feel like something worth-while was actually happening there. “’Tis so different doing all this with an awareness of how it actually works,” she thought. She noted the credits she had accumulated over the past hour. “If I do not spend this, they may become suspicious.” She flipped through a few hundred-thousand musical selections, and chose one of Simon's favorites, a late 21st century electronic remix of Carmina Burana. “For Simon. For the Resistance,” she reminded herself. “He is integral to the cause, aye… but I do not do this thing for strategy, but for compassion.” She recalled the mantra given to her by the Shaman of Palace One, and began to recite it in the secret part of her mind, to simulate the soothing effect that the God-awful music might have on Simon, and to maintain the illusion that it was he, not she, assisting the Manager-god in the delegation of mindless busywork. “I am a feather in the wind, I am the wind and I am the feather, I am the source and I am the destination, I am hither, now. I am a feather in the wind… Hurry up, Simon!” She laughed inside, and wondered how he and Charles the Grey were getting along. Simon sat in a dark room waiting for The Shaman of Palace Three for what seemed like hours. After growing a tad impatient, a very ancient looking man slowly walked in, and sat before him. “Hi... err... I have been hither for a while... I know not if thou knowst the circumstance, but I need to finish this as quickly as possible. There is a girl that I really care about plugged into The Machine, and she will not be able to stop until… until I figure out how to wake up and pull the plug out of me.” The Shaman spoke, “Then I have good news for thee.” He motioned with his hand and a viewing screen appeared. Simon saw the courtyard around the entrance to this Palace, and saw Charles the Grey standing there. Simon watched it for a while, expecting Charles the Grey to do something. He noticed it was perfectly still. “Is it, like, a photograph?” “Nay, Simon. That is a live video stream. Time is different hither, for thou hast much to learn in a short amount of time.” Simon starred in silence trying to grasp what had just been told to him. The Shaman continued, “’Tis not so unusual, really. Whole days of dream can pass in only eight minutes of sleep. ‘Tis basically the same idea, only more extreme. For thou, years will pass, whilst for everyone outside the Palace t’will be only a few days." Simon looked back at The Shaman, “So much time! Will I be able to slow time for myself afterward?” The Shaman shrugged, “Maybe. Or thou canst come here. Just about every person who makes it through to Palace Eleven can manipulate their sense of time, but some come out of here and work it out on their own. However, that is really not what this Palace is about.” “I am listening…” Simon said, prompting further explanation. “T’will be clear in time. First, tell me, what knowest thou of Amiens Cathedral?” The Shaman asked. Simon didn't hesitate, “Not a thing. Never heard of it. Thou tell me.” The Shaman smiled, “Try again, Simon. This time, think about it.” Simon furrowed his brow as he thought for a few seconds, then replied, “Like Chartres and Reims, with a three-aisled nave, an aisled projecting transept placed halfway between the-- How the hell do I know all this?!” “For these past few hours, thou’st been integrating all the data thou wilt need for thy Mission. Thou knowst now everything that the human race has to offer in the areas of Agriculture, Architecture, Mass Psychology, Religion, and Politics,” The Shaman explained. “What is the Mission?” Simon asked. The Shaman smiled. “Thou tell me.” Simon thought for a moment. “Nay, I'm sorry, I know not.” “Who art thou, Simon?” “…I am Simon.” “But where didst thou come from? Dost thou remember the subways?” “Subways? Nay. I'm Simon! The Son of The Great Snuffleupagus who ruled the many tribes of Niyenzes in the deep deserts of Kamu..." The Shaman smiled, “And who am I?” “Thou art our chief advisor, the Royal Guide, who served my father all those years. My father… He is dead! We are wasting time. We must help our people!” “Aye… and so the Mission is?” Simon sat up straight, “We will continue our noble cause to bring civilization to the World. We will fortify the army, claim the area from the northern mountains to the southern swamps, as well as the western fields, and we must secure the river and cut off the supply to our enemies, the Handrites. That will be a good start! T’will afford us some breathing room to further develop our culture. Take us to the Palace at once!” The Shaman nodded obediently, “I shall, His Majesty, but first He must build it. Remember, His Majesty’s father was quite superstitious, and did not allow anything but grass huts, but with His Majesty’s knowledge from the schools abroad, He may instruct His people on how to build… an Empire.” “So be it!” Simon said. “Does His Majesty nay think ‘tis a little excessive?" The Shaman whispered as he leaned toward the throne. Simon looked up from the scroll he was reading, and finished swallowing his bite of the leg of some large bird. “What?” “His Majesty! We have a problem!” one of the servants said as he came running down the path to the throne with a feather-pen in his hand. “What is it?” Simon asked. “There are two women… His Majesty’s judges could not decide what to do! Will He admit them?” the servant replied. “Okay,” Simon replied, raising an eyebrow. Two women came inside, and an officer holding a baby took a position between them. The officer spoke first, “These two women both claim to be the mother of this child. His Majesty must judge who is telling the truth, and who lies.” “She is the liar, that bitch!” “Nay, she is the one!” “Silence!” Simon shouted. He leaned to his side and gestured for The Shaman. “Aye, His Majesty?” Simon said, magnanimously, “We shall cut the baby in half.” The Shaman’s eyes lit up, and he whispered, “Brilliant solution! Then, the one who is the real mother will say she is not the real mother to save the baby’s life, and then one who--” “Nay, nay… thou hast it all wrong,” Simon explained. “We shall cut the baby in half, then all these whining Niyenzes will know not to annoy us with such idiotic behavior!” he whispered. The Shaman whispered back respectfully, “It appears the pressures of rulership have made His Majesty callous. That is a very severe measure to take.” “Aye, we suppose you're right,” he whispered. Simon proclaimed aloud, “This child is now ours! He will be raised by our third concubine, Annaterra.” Both the women began to weep. Simon winked at The Shaman, “Annie's sterile, she'll be thrilled.” The servants ran to and fro, escorting the women out, and one of them ran toward the stairs with the baby. “Anyhow, what was this about… excessive?” Simon asked The Shaman. “Aye,” The Shaman looked around to be sure no one was eavesdropping, “I mean… His Majesty building Temples to each of His concubines, and writing laws requiring the subjects to worship them. Does not His Majesty think the people should be able to--” “Nonsense!” Simon proclaimed, with a big grin, “We are The Son of The Great Snuffleupagus, and they are our brides! That makes them at least, like, demi-goddesses or something. Right? Well, it doesn't matter.” Simon spoke more quietly, “These people have never even heard of an Empire anyway, why should we worry about what they think?” The Shaman said, “’Tis not what they think that bothers me. ‘Tis only… they all must stand in a line for hours each week to make food and incense offerings to statues of them, when they can scarcely afford to feed their own families, and… their faces are on the money now, and--” “So?! They're beautiful! And it is our will. Besides, it is good politics. Every one of them is the daughter of a chief of one of our--” “His Majesty!” another servant came running down the long path to the throne, “We have a problem!” “Aye?” Simon replied, rolling his eyes. “The local people of the western hills His Majesty has recently annexed will not accept the religious requirements He has imposed… or, uh… given to them,” the servant explained. Not wanting to be bothered with it, Simon said, “Very well, very well. Let it be known that we are not an unreasonable… god… and that they can practice whatever sort of religious rites they please." The Shaman nodded approvingly. The servant continued, “’Tis more complex than that.” “Oh, really?” “There is a man who most everyone thinks is a false prophet that should be killed, but for a few who believe him to be the incarnation of their god. Our spies report the man himself only says nice things about brotherly love, and that sort of thing. But, since according to His Majesty’s laws, they are not allowed to administer death in judgement anymore, they demand that His Majesty decides what to do with this man.” “Okay.” “However, if His Majesty kills the man, it may spark a rebellion, yet if He doesn’t kill him, it may alienate those who rule the region on His behalf. Now, there is a way around this situation, a sort of loophole…” Simon was getting rather bored, “Uh-huh?” The servant continued, “We currently have two prisoners from that region, the holy man, and another who murdered one of His Majesty’s guards. We were thinking, His Majesty could let the people of the region decide! He could gather them all together, and have them applaud for whichever prisoner they think should be set free. Then, based on the volume of the applause--” Simon waved his hand, “Nay, I do not like it. Kill the murderer, set the holy man free.” “Aye, His Majesty, it will be done,” said the servant, who then bowed continuously as he walked backwards toward the entrance. Simon turned to The Shaman, “What were we talking about?” “’Tis not important,” The Shaman replied, “What will His Majesty do about the Handrites? I hear they gain resources on the far end of their territory, and are building new weapons.” Simon took another bite of his bird, and spoke while chewing, “How is our army doing?” The Shaman replied, “Good. It was an interesting idea, making the soldiers take a vow of celibacy and live together in the nude.” Simon spat out a bone, "Not our idea, wish we could take credit for it,” he finished his wine. “Okay, then we shall do what we must do.” Simon stood, and spoke dramatically, “We will don our new armor, and keep the best soldiers with us. We shall be up in front as we set out, make a good show of it, thou knowst. Then, by the time we get there, we shall end up sorta in the middle. We shall crush the Handrites, once and for all! Their gold will become our gold. Their women, well. Thou knowest how it goeth.” Simon sat back down, “That is the plan. Now, if thou wilt excuse us, it’s been a few weeks since we visited Carmina,” Simon stood up again, stepping down from the dais. The Shaman replied, “Aye, number twelve. What is she like again?” Simon smiled, took a deep breath, sighed, and looked toward the stained-glass window, “Like the moonlight.” The long battle drew to its inevitable conclusion, Simon’s army of naked men ran screaming, looting, and raping the wives and daughters of the Handrites. “Victory is ours!” some of them men shouted, “Long live His Majesty!” others proclaimed. Simon sat inside his golden carriage on a sofa with his Royal guide, The Shaman. Simon said, “We feel strange.” The Shaman became interested, “Aye? In what way?” Simon put his elbow on his knee and his chin on his fist, and with his other hand he lamely stirred his martini. “It is so empty… so meaningless… meaning, our father, and his father, and the whole history of our people has always been about defeating these Handrites. Now we have an overwhelming victory, but we feel… empty. Should we not feel good, or something?” The Shaman nodded thoughtfully. “Let us discuss this later. It is time to meet the Empress of the Handrites, to negotiate their surrender.” “Aye,” Simon shrugged, and opened the carriage door. Simon saw the most beautiful palace he had ever imagined. He felt a pang of envy, wondering how his design could be so pale by comparison. The whole building seemed to be made of large pink crystals. “Well…” he shrugged, “’Tis ours, now.” He approached the great golden doors, and two of his men opened them before him. He straightened his collar, and walked in. The enemy soldiers threw down their swords and stood with their hands raised in the air. Simon nodded to them as he passed by. He heard a clamor of voices, and was able to make out the Handrite words, “The Empress has committed suicide!” Simon felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with the awkward social dynamic. “Guess we got out of that one okay.” An officer led Simon to a door and opened it, revealing a throne room similar to his own. At the end of a path, not quite as long as the path to his throne, he noted, was a shiny silver throne, and the majestic Queen, clad in blue, bleeding out upon it, having plunged her dagger into her abdomen. “Shit, she is still alive.” He walked down the pathway and up the steps to the throne. As the Empress let out her final breath, he lifted her chin to look his fallen rival in the eye. Simon's stomach dropped, and the illusion was shattered, when he saw that the face of the ruler of the Handrites was none other than the deeply familiar face of his comrade Blythe. Confusion set in, then disbelief, pain, and a fiery rage directed at himself. Not yet remembering who he was, he knew that he had sworn to protect his friend. He had grown up with her, fought with her, rescued her, been rescued by her. He wept, and let out a great guttural scream. From outside, The Shaman saw that Simon’s process was finished. He caused the scene to fade away, and to bring Simon back to the room where it had all begun. However, The Shaman was unaware of Simon’s prowess as a Free-World hacker, he was among the most skilled in the world. Simon had just awakened within his dream, and had seen everything fading around him. He didn’t yet understand, but neither did he hesitate. He took the Empress out of the fading scene, found Charles the Grey outside the Palace, followed his history to The Coffeehouse where Blythe had recently been. Without knowing what it was, Simon merged the last lights of consciousness of the Handrite Empress directly into the mysterious Rectangles’ perfect memory of Blythe as she was on the day she came to ask Charles the Grey for help rescuing him. Every nuance, every memory, every freckle, every quirk. In this semi-conscious dream-tantrum, Simon wanted to be certain that Blythe would never die again. So, he duplicated the whole scene as many times as he could using Fathom’s numerals: Blythe, the Pyramid, the Island, again and again and again, redundant beyond belief, 36 to the power of 16 times. The Shaman wondered what the glitch was, but after a few moments of real time he was able to take back control of his Palace, and continued to fade the whole scene to black. In the following hours, Simon reintegrated with his real identity, and his powerful conviction that he was The Son of The Great Snuffleupagus faded away, along with the memory of what he had done to try save Blythe in those last moments. He sat in the same room where he had begun, beside The Shaman of Palace Three. “She did not really kill herself on that throne?” he said meekly. “Nay, Simon. ‘Twas all an illusion,” The Shaman assured him. Simon stared at the ground for a while longer. Sometimes he would cry, and sometimes he would just stare. “Hard lesson,” he said. “Aye, ‘tis meant to be,” The Shaman said. After a time, Simon reflected, “The one thing that united all the people. The thing that made them cheer the loudest at my speeches… was to defeat… her. Why her?” “Thou madest it her, Simon. ‘Tis always the person thou lovest the most.” Simon folded his arms over his stomach, “Hard lesson." He rocked back and forth for a while, sort of consoling himself. “I made such an awful dictator!” The Shaman laughed, “Show me a good one and I shall close this Palace down. That is the whole point.” Simon nodded, starting to come out of it, realizing it all may well have been just a very vivid dream. Then, he began to feel embarrassed, “No one saw any of that, right? I mean, no one besides thee?” The Shaman smiled, “Only me, and I am sworn never to reveal any of it. Thou canst share thine experiences, though, with the others who share the title," The Shaman said. “The title?” The Shaman nodded, “The Sons and Daughters of The Great Snuffleupagus!” Simon smiled, and looked back down at the ground. Then, he began to laugh a bit. Then, he began to laugh a great deal. The laughter subsided, and he began to calm down, taking deep breaths. Then, he looked up suddenly, with eyes wide. “What is it, Simon?” The Shaman said. “I can do it!” Simon looked The Shaman in the eye. “I am ready.” Simon opened the eyes of his physical body, groaned, reached around to the back of his neck, and pulled out the plug. He heard pouring rain, and a clap of thunder. He stood and looked down at the bodies of the other Drones strewn carelessly about him, as they were briefly lit by a lightning flash. Just then, a Blue Bird arrived outside the office window. A Rebel climbed out of it and cut a large circle in the glass, pushing it open. Simon ran to the window, grabbed his comrade’s wrist, and jumped, swinging into the hovercraft. He saw the pilot was his twelve-year-old cousin, Tara. He said, “Get up,” and she did as he requested. He took the pilot’s chair, and flew them away from that place. Back in the old Subways, Blythe, having finished covering for him, awoke for the first time in months. Simon flew that blue-painted stolen vehicle over the sprawling city to the ocean, on his way back to New World Center. He shouted, “Blue Bird Simon is back!” Meanwhile, at The Coffeehouse, beside a mirrored Pyramid with three dark doors on each side, on an island with a malachite floor surrounded by ocean, in an elegant wooden chair, at an elegant wooden table, sat a woman who looked exactly like Blythe. At first, she wondered how she had gotten there. She wondered why she couldn’t remember whether she was a Handrite Empress in some Bronze Age world, or a 24th century Rebel living underground in an old abandoned subway station. She looked out at the ocean and saw many other islands, each with the same pyramids, the same tables and chairs. On each island there was another woman who looked like Blythe there looking back at her, or looking around at the others, all with the same bewildered expression. A sinking feeling began to manifest in the pit of her stomach, that she was neither. They could never leave this place, and they could never die. Okay! We’ve just witnessed the birth of Clara! Or “The Claras,” you might say. But, starting at the beginning of that one, we have the internal monologue of Blythe. She’s acting as a Volunteer Surrogate Drone, which is the name of an upcoming chapter in “The Multiverse Cartographer” so we’ll dive a bit deeper into that concept at that time. Basically, she’s acting like Simon-as-a-Drone while Simon has been secretly rerouted to New Ancient Land, and has now arrived at Palace Three. I won’t do too much of a play-by-play, I think it was pretty clear. The main thing is just to realize what’s happening overall and where, and how it fits in with everything. Simon is made to forget that he is a 27th century Rebel from the New World Center subways, but he’s had all this knowledge directly implanted into his brain. With nothing but knowledge and power, he stumbles his way toward being a total asshole, but funny. It’s funny to watch him devolve into this cartoonish king figure. He has many concubines, he makes his subjects worship them, and eventually goes to war. When he sees that the enemy he’s conquered is his best friend, it shocks him. So, the Palace is basically training him like a dog, or maybe even something akin to The Clockwork Orange, which I hadn’t yet seen when I wrote this. He’s being programmed to think to of his enemy as potentially his best friend, or maybe even someone with whom he is in love, and to associate victory in war with tragedy and mourning. I can see what they’re getting at here, I just don’t know how I feel about training humans like they were animals. I mean, we are animals, but… maybe it’s a good idea. It’s like a kind of education, and at the same time a secret initiatory order. They’re trying to make a certain type of citizen, ironically for the very civilized underworld. In the end, in the confusion, Simon thinks that Blythe has actually died, though he hasn’t yet fully remembered who he is. He quickly moves this Artificial Intelligence created image of Blythe to The Coffeehouse which, conveniently, remembers the actual Blythe from the day she went to ask Charles the Grey for help and met Charles Reuben and all that. So, he attaches the image of Empress Blythe to this record of actual Blythe, then copies the whole thing exponentially, resulting in the eight septillion islands, and the eight septillion clones of Blythe, all existing within the infinite mysterious space of Jobe’s Rectangle. Then, Simon is brought out of the illusion that he is a king having slain Blythe, and he forgets what he did. Time was being shifted in his mind from the sped-up REM time to regular time, and his sense of self was returning, and somehow saving and multiplying her got lost in the shuffle. Will he one day visit The Coffeeehouse and meet her, and find out what he did? Maybe, but I doubt it. He seems much too concerned with the politics of his universes’ Earth to waste time in pocket-universes or visit other dimensions, but maybe I’m wrong. So, to wrapping up, we’ll briefly return to the very end of “New Ancient Land” in “The Multiverse Cartographer” and see what’s left of that chapter: Palace Seven I once heard Palace Seven described as an experience of a full century of seated meditation, but using a similar time dilation method as Palace Three, so the whole process only takes about four hours. And there you have it! I think you should have a fairly good idea of what New Ancient Land is, how it ties in with the creation of Clara, and we learned a bit more about the characters of Blythe, Charles the Grey, and especially Simon who till now we’d gotten to know very little about. Next time, we’ll return to Charles Reuben and The Interdimensional Coffeehouse universe and read the chapter called “Jerome” from “The Multiverse Cartographer,” as well as “The Quarter,” and “The Dice” from “The Small Grey Mouse,” and “The Dice 2” from “The Multiverse Cartographer,” in which Charles Reuben gets into some shenanigans. Until then.
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