bibliomantic branks

In that part of my home where I entertain guests, or lounge on my own, books tend to accumulate. There is always, of course, the dictionary, probably the most frequently handled tome in my home, recourse to which is common in the course of just hanging out conversing. In addition to that are some of those books loaned by friends, and whatever reference books or citation sources may have recently been consulted. Lately, these have included the Viking "The Portable Nietzsche" and an edition of the Hagakure, and, for a couple weeks, Aleister Crowley's Book of Lies.

I mention the Nietzsche and Hagakure, particularly, because they have been my touchstones for the occasional rite of bibliomancy.

Have I intimated my interest in numinous lore before? (I have, Dear Reader, but ask that more or less rhetorically). Bibliomancy is the practice of divination by the chance-mediated selection of a passage of a text. (It is, to some degree, an influence on the author's notions of destructive writing). The classic (and classical?) example is the I Ching, oft' described as "the Chinese Book of Changes," and a principal text of Confucian culture, which may (but needn't) be consulted for divination by "casting the yarrow stalks" or throwing coins to determine the relevant passage.

As the word denoting the practice might imply, the Bible is another not-uncommon source text.

A pithy passage or aphorism from either of those books on my floor might spawn hours of fascinating conversation, contemplation, or the sequence of associations leading to a novel insight on some heretofore-insoluble issue; Nietzsche and the Hagakure (it is attributed to Yamamoto Tsunetomo) offer the would-be bibliomancer writings characterized by frequent brief aphoristic structure, yielding the chance of lots of meaning with little time spent actually reading.

Crowley's Book of Lies is likewise structured in brief pithy passages. I had gotten it down from the shelf in search of (some explanation of) his juxtaposition of the "!" and the "?" or, in what I think are his words, but did not find in this book, "the soldier and the hunchback," as symbolic of a yin/yang sort of totality of complementary opposites. Since that failure, the book has lain there among those used for the bibliomantic practice, and was taken up from time to time.

Perhaps you remember, Dear Reader, my describing Crowley-the-writer as not being particularly concerned with whether you-the-reader can understand what he's saying. The Book of Lies is like this in spades. (Interestingly, somewhere in that book, if you believe that author's assertions, he inadvertently revealed some fundamental secret of, maybe the Golden Dawn or a like mystical secret society organization, in such a way as to get him in trouble with said organization, which publicity he ultimately parleyed into some other insight, revelation and/or publishing scandal). Not only doesn't he care if you understand his Book of Lies, but he means to deliberately assault the habituated capacity for understanding in his reader through licentious and turgid paradox, which the next Master of the Temple or Child of the Immanent Aeon or whatever will reveal himself by uniquely being able to understand! Or maybe something like that; or maybe not.

Perhaps needless to say, Crowley's Book of Lies proved inscrutable and thus frustrating in the forum where Nietzsche and Tsunetomo had invigorated discussion.

So, just the other day, remembering that inscrutability and frustration, when I might have taken up a book for such a randomly-selected passage, I instead took up Crowley's, intending to return it to its shelf, and, gesturing with it, to my friend, described it as frustrating and useless for bibliomancy insofar as there was no passage in it that was made entirely of common English-language words or comprehensible, and then, reflecting on another friend's question, "what do you mean by "'destructive writing'?" and my own reticence to commit to a principled statement on the subject, wondered aloud whether perhaps, by deliberately producing such impenetrable prose and poetry, Crowley, in the Book of Lies, purposefully engaged in destructive writing. Speaking thus, and intending toward the shelves, I said what the hell, one last try, and opened it to a passage entitled "The Branks" which seemed directly relevant, contradicting my evaluation of the book's bibliomantic utility with a resoundingly affirmative answer to my question:

Being is the Noun; Form is the adjective.
Matter is the Noun; Motion is the Verb.
Wherefore hath Being clothed itself with Form?
Wherefore hath Matter manifested itself in Motion?
Answer not, O silent one! For THERE is no "wherefore", no "because".
The name of THAT is not known; the Pronoun interprets, that is, misinterprets, It.
Time and Space are Adverbs.
Duality begat the Conjunction.
The Conditioned is Father of the Preposition.
The Article also marketh Division; but the Interjection is the sound that endeth in the Silence. Destroy therefore the Eight Parts of Speech; the Ninth is nigh unto Truth.
This also must be destroyed before thou enterest into The Silence.
Aum.

Notes on the passage state "[t]he chapter is formally an attack upon the parts of speech, the interjection, the meaningless utterance of ecstasy, being the only thing worth saying; yet even this is to be regarded as a lapse."

I failed to get the book back to the shelf, and, later, told another friend about the bibliomantic endeavor and destructive writing connection. Dear Reader, that friend looked at me like I was crazy.

(That friend also isn't sure about either what-is-not-yet-satisfactorily-signified-by-"destructive writing" or what-is-not-yet-satisfactorily signified-by-"antihumor", both issues we here at Hellmark Press intend to continue exploring, in which endeavor we expect that friend's skepticism to prove a valuable prod;)