[nameless]

This whole theory of life being an illusion is one that has been around since recorded history. The theory made famous by Plato with his cave of shadows. This is a great astute psychological insight or postulation, and like all these theorys of how we view the world it says more about "us" then the "world". The world of men ruled by gods can not be proven or confounded but the written stories or "testimonies" of these encounters give us a supposed psychological insight into the people of the time. As wth the chronolgy of theory about life as an illusion it ends up becoming a list of imaginative leaps a tracking of the developement of the human capacity to utilize the brain and the secret gift of imagination.

In this sense the "bicarmic" mind. This theory (as all psychology is just that) states that the state of the "mind" in those times was split between that which was speaking and thta which was listening, this means that the wrongly derided state of schitzophrenia was actualy the norm and people actualy did communicate with gods that they had real visions of and shared in, and in so doing transferred their mind into reality or acted out their belief systems and deep seated anxieties and hopes and fears. Freud and, Jung just saw the psychology in these ancient stories, they didint invent anything just were able to view these architypal states laid out in real psychological testimonies. The evocation of this "externalization" state is a useful tool that can be utilized today, the danger is losing conciousnes and control of this state, so ritual is invented in order "to talk us down" and enter and exit a new state of awareness. I mean you dont want to live in a world talking to plants constantly and not being able to seperate the fact and fiction, the real hidden base and one you made up in your brain? Then we invented things like metaphor and analogies to help us communicate and understand the world, our talking to ourselves demoted to one way conversations like "prayer".

The game theory type state of looking at the world seems to be more akin to the Gnostic view of world perception, of which we have filmic games like the "matrix" which is essentialy a gnostic mystery play with blinds and little secret injokes. And games as interpreting the way we view the world as a metalog is like all our attempts at creation and creating new art forms or forms of art is a new way to explain the world. Its not just the story, the story is the engagement factor, its the actual form or way this is used or communicated. Once this is understood you realise how poor films are at explaining how we view the known universe, but the more we are convinced that the world is like films, the more we can be controlled with "filmic" tricks, like the staging of 911 straight out of hollywood. Films are linear and in the cinema you engage passively with no interaction, but unlike books you can sneak things in without you being aware. You can still do this with books but they become more obvious as you can reread stuff and peruse at your own will. If we go back to Platos cave, film is much like the shadows on the wall and us chained to the floor unable to see where the pictures are eminating from, except we all share the illusion in a cinema and we know it to be the case because we are in a cinema. Books engage the imagination make use of your internal speaking faculties, films require you to use other parts of the brain in suspension, the listening faculties. Comic books an art form in their own right requires you to use both sides of the brain and many old alchemical texts where written as comic books or annotated pictures in sequential form. Computer games well that requires you to be emersed into a reality or dream state momentarily and then utilizes the faculties you use everyday but in someone elses imagination, very fun but very scary. (anyone see the Deren Brown show where he puts someone in a real live computer game, convincing them it is real?). Again all metaphors to explain how we view the world. Whatabout real life theatre, theatre without a stage done in the street or on the train, real actors playing real people?

Anyhoo, games have always been an interactive way of explaining the world around us and there are many cults around board games, card games and ball games. Tarot from which we derive playing cards are a two dimensional "random accesss computer" based on the programmed sequence which is the Kaballistic tree of life.

anyway, to know the game is not to play it but to build it yourself.