To: thelema93-l
From: bantik (The Sinister Minister)
Subject: Artaud on the Abyss
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:

To continue, carefully, in my endeavors to bring to light those sources of
insight that are usually beyond (or below) the frames of reference that
are normal and expected in this forum, I quote the following from Antonin
Artaud. On my first reading, I too k this to be the confession of one lost
in the abyss. Later, it occured to me that it is equally possible that he
'crossed' it, and that enlightenment is the equivalent of madness. The
first and final path-- connecting Chokmah to Kether-- is, after all, the
Fool...

'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"'"

"I no longer wish to be a Believer in Illusions. Dead to the world; dead
to that which is for everyone else the world, fallen at last, fallen,
uplifted in this void that I once refused, I have a body that submits to
the world, and disgorges reality.

"I've had enough of this lunar movement that makes me name what I refuse
and refuse what I have named.

"I must put an end to it. I must at last make a clean break with this
world which a Being in me, this Being I can no longer name because if he
returns I shall fall into the Void, this Being has always refused.

"It's done. I really fell into the void after all-- that makes this
world-- had acheived its purpose of making me despair. For this knowledge
of no longer being in the world comes only with knowing that the world has
indeed left you.

"Dead, the others have not been separated: they still hover around their
corpses. I really identified with this Being, this Being that has ceased
to exist. And this Being revealed to me all things. I knew it, but could
not say it, and if I can start to sa y it now, it is because I have left
reality behind.

"This is a real Madman talking to you, one who never knew the happiness of
the world until now that he has become absolutely separated from it. Dead,
the others have not been separated: they still hover around their corpses.
I am not dead. But I have been separated."

(Taken from the essay "The New Revalations of Being", as it appeared in
the _Artaud Anthology_.)