Stirring of the Nod Gods

Hello again, twatty reader. Now... we have seen how Nod Gods (strange disembodied faces) were doodled, developed, nurtured and given mobility in those early days. Attempts were also made to breathe life into these two-dimensional creations, and by 'life' I don't mean mere 'presence', but an actual independent consciousness. Here, mention must be made of the influence of 1990s computer gaming culture, especially that surrounding the popular Amiga home computer, upon the development of the Nod Gods. The Nod Gods were treated as if they were potential characters for a new Amiga game. In 1992 it was unusual but not impossible to meet a fellow ten-year-old semi-fluent in a programming language such as AMOS (Easy AMOS), Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit or 3D Construction Kit (all available on the Amiga), and I was one of them (in fact, a few other people were too, but I digress). A definitive Nod God game was never realised due to shoddy programming, but this didn't stifle the drawing up of ideas, plans and blueprints. In the book 'Trigger Happy', Steven Poole illustrates how computer game characters demand dimensionality (and I will quote him even though I believe quoting other people denotes low self-esteem):

"The star of a videogame (...) is invented: built completely from the ground up. A false idol indeed. Yet in another way a hyperreal one: for whereas a novelist, who also invents characters, will normally only need (or desire) to provide a few salient features of a person's appearance and let the reader's imagination do the rest, a videogame character must be determinedly individuated" (Poole, 2004: p.139)

Therefore the Nod God was looked upon as a potentially real being. It was desired that the Nod God character should be interactive, thus it slowly assumed a life of its own. In order to impart a sense of immersion in computer games, the impression must be given of independent intelligences. As I sought desperately to transcend the pen and paper amateurishness of the early Nod God designs and focussed avidly on the creature as a real being, I was unwittingly bringing the Nod God into the real world - literally. In stark contrast to my old naive enthusiasm, I now find my adult self glimpsing a Nod God sitting on a bus, and once collapsing at the Job Centre under the burden of these visions: two Nod Gods perched on the careers advisor's bookshelf as bookends. These real visions I now try to ignore. Such incidents make me wonder whether the Nod Gods were given too much mobility that allowed them to access higher dimensionality.

In the previous posting an explanation for such visions was alluded to. The explanation lies in a book written by French explorer Alexandra David-Néel called 'With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet' (1931). In this account of her travels, she talks of a species of thought-forms called 'tulpas'. Tulpas are sentient forms borne of the imagination that become endowed with an apparent physicality through intense visualisation and willpower. To create a tulpa, one simply has to concentrate avidly on an imaginary character, and it will eventually cross into reality, but she warns that "the practice is considered as fraught with danger for everyone who has not reached a high mental and spiritual degree of enlightenment". Beyond a certain point a tulpa can "free itself from its maker's control". Alexandra David-Néel tried to create her own tulpa by imagining the figure of a comical short, fat, jolly monk. Harmless. She succeeded in creating this tulpa. "The illusion persisted. I saw the fat tulpa; now and then it was not necessary for me to think of him to make him appear" (p.314). However, the tulpa became too independent and uncontrollable, even becoming visible to other people(!). It had developed a lust for life.

"He became more troublesome and bold. In brief, he escaped my control. Once, a herdsman who brought me a present of butter saw the tulpa in my tent and took it for a living lama. I ought to have let the phenomenon follow its course, but the presence of that unwanted companion began to prove trying to my nerves; it turned into a 'day-nightmare'. Moreover, I was beginning to plan my journey to Lhasa and needed a quiet brain devoid of other preoccupations, so I decided to dissolve the phantom. I succeeded, but only after six months of hard struggle. My mind-creature was tenacious of life" (David-Néel, 1931: p.315)

The 16th Century alchemist and physician Paracelsus is also alleged to have known of the thought-form ability. Franz Hartmann provides this description of what Paracelsus called an Aquastor (elsewhere referred to as the Aquaster):

"Aquastor: A being created by the power of the imagination (...). Such imaginary but nevertheless real forms may obtain life from the person by whose imagination they are created and under certain circumstances they may even become visible and tangible" (Hartmann, 1896: p.32)

Let us now compare these descriptions of thought-forms with a modern description of psychotic symptoms taken from the accompanying leaflet for Zyprexa's olanzapine antipsychotics (which treats thought-forms as symptoms of a "disease" as opposed to a natural result of "racing thoughts"). Click to enlarge the original text.

"Zyprexa is used to treat a disease with symptoms such as hearing, seeing or sensing things which are not there" (Zyprexa Package Leaflet, 2007: p.1)

It is ironic and coincidental that doctors are also sometimes referred to as 'nod Gods' when they blindly prescribe powerful antipsychotic medicine such as Zyprexa to people who are already burdened enough as it is, with an escaped thought (say, a f*cking Nod God)!

When primary school finished in 1993, everyone made a 'beautiful book' that was supposed to document our finest work during primary education. I peppered mine with images of Nod Gods, and wrote the invocation "may the spirit of the Gods live on" on the last page, and more prophetically "the God has escaped" (showing a Nod God smashing out of its framing enclosure), which was a bit unwise with hindsight, as we shall see...

Bibliography
Hartmann, F. 1896 The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim
Poole, S. 2004 Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution
David-Néel, A. 1931 With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet (Magic and Mystery in Tibet)
Zyprexa 2007 Zyprexa Package Leaflet

The Humble Beginnings of the Nod Gods

So, welcome to the Annals of Duplo. As an infant I 'heard' things that others didn't: the jabbering of "Uncles" who hid themselves within stones, twigs and plants. Thankfully, a friend of mine said he also beheld the "Uncles" too, which convinced me everything was fine. Unclespeak gradually disappeared only to be replaced by something more sophisticated.

If things seem a little indulgent, this is just an illusion. Bear with me! Here will be presented the development of an idea germ: a static doodle drawn by myself, aged ten, that demanded mobility - a demand duly granted through the subsequent development of techno-doodles and new innovations: buggies, trolleys, tanks, cars and bodily upgrades. Gradually, the doodle spawned progeny and the progeny were more alive than ever. They gained such mobility that they lapped at the edges of imagination to squeeze out into reality. Dangerously, they imposed themselves onto important documents: textbooks, SATS and GCSE exam papers, job applications, and perhaps the most important 'document' of all: the human brain. The difficult period from adolescence to adulthood requires a certain "short-circuiting to earth" - a submission to populist thinking: buying into certain trends (the pop music of the era - The Prodigy, Placebo, Nirvana, Chemical Bros., Wu Tang Clan or whatever), 'standardisation' of consciousness, smothering the muse, aiming for the common goals of academic and social success, the attainment of a love life, etc. However, the living doodles, with their vast energy requirements, would not allow such draining things! These doodles insisted on the consolidation of all mental faculties onto themselves in order to allow their continued growth.

Let us start at the very beginning: a 'wet break' at primary school, 1992. This is a lock-in where the rain prevents playtime from happening outside in the playing fields. Denial of physical exertion transposed playtime into the self, the mind, and thus doodles were drawn to vent the masses of energy that act upon the muse in such circumstances. I drew this thing.

Yep, it's just a face. It had been done before. A completely unoriginal thing. Nothing special. But, please, peer into its thin drooping eyes. Look at its quantum construct. It is complex. It possesses a noble modesty. It looks both inquisitive and bemused at its own situation. It's blotchy. A shy creature seemingly appealing for bodily upgrades. Lo! It is blushing in its nakedness! Surely if it is capable of embarrassment, it is also capable of joy, happiness, sorrow and anguish? Of course it is.
A friend whose name was Robert Lewis also understood that such a face should be given mobility. The gift of mobility was logical. It was ethical. We saw the plight of its disability at once, and promptly decided to name the creature as a 'God' for unremembered reasons. Perhaps there was a subconscious urge to restore the self-confidence of this poor blushing mite (now sentient). Or perhaps it resembled how we thought a God-like being should actually appear - stripped of glorious classical religious imagery. Whatever. Vehicles were designed.

The 'Gods' were born. They soon became known as Nod Gods. This name is given because in their natural state, the only way for the Gods to move is by rapidly rocking back and forth in a nodding movement. This enables them to move about, albeit sorely, in a frenzy of nodding. It is interesting to note that by envisioning the nodding motion, the Nod God had now broken free from two-dimensional constraints. The nodding Nod God dragging itself along the ground was no longer a circular being, it was a spherical being; nodding backwards and forwards in three-dimensional space. This is indicative of its ability to occupy multiple dimensions at once (we will see it much later spilling into an even higher dimension). Nod was also assigned a clunky acronym: Nobody on Defence. It sounded sort of important but didn't mean anything - the idea was to be interesting.

I tried to rope in other individuals to see what kind of solutions for the Nod Gods they would come up with, and what facial expressions their Nod Gods would have. They supplied some drawings, but seemed a little timid as they sketched. Perhaps I was egging on the classmates to draw things they didn't really want to draw? Perhaps they secretly knew the true power of doodling and its dangers? They seemed restrained.
Some time later, during a 'reading session' I threw a Terry Pratchett book at fellow Nod God initiate Robert for no solid reason. This was a vulgar and arrogant abeyance on my part. I was an E-number affected arsehole, frustrated by the occasional ridicule of other classmates who were unreceptive to the concept of Nod Gods, and with whom Robert consorted to my disappointment. The book throwing incident severed the friendship, and as I was too proud and cowardly to apologise, I tried to funnel apologetic energies psychically into the care of Nod Gods to deliver to Robert. But then primary school ended and secondary school began with a brand new assemblage of people. I was never sure if Robert ever received the psychic message of apology from the Nod Gods, although it seems he did, because quite recently, following a chance sequence of events, I re-established contact with him and he seemed cool. I dared not mention that Nod Gods were still at the forefront of my thoughts for fear of ridicule.

Soon, all this self-indulgent rambling will give way to some good info, bear with me kind reader. Now it must be asked - why didn't the Nod Gods fade from memory? How did they grow to occupy higher dimensions? Why did they end up being scrawled onto job applications and other inappropriate places? A clue lies in a book published 1929 by a lady called Alexandra David-Néel, called 'Magic and Mystery in Tibet', concerning her travels and experiences... All will be explained!

Introduction to the Annals of Duplo

It has been said that all blogs can be slotted into two possible categories: 'referential' blogs direct the reader toward ideas originated elsewhere (and are essentially populist/exoteric), whilst the 'experiential' ones document the lived experience of the blogger in a personal diary format (non-populist/esoteric). But such distinctions are flawed if we view 'experiential' writing as the result of consuming reference, and excreting it as new reference, albeit reference of a lesser common value than the original input. But why should reference be hierarchised in this way? Ecologically, excreta is the most precious resource: full of nutrients, and which gives birth to fungi, which is eaten by higher organisms, and so on and so forth. Think of this blog in those terms. Shit. Furthermore, the 'referential' and 'experiential' categorisations can be muddied further if, peradventure, a blog were to be edited by a being from another dimension! A being with potential access to a reservoir of all thoughts that had ever been thought. I'm not saying that this blog features such a being (that would be insane), however, a particularly persistent and seemingly ridiculous character seems to be guiding my very hand! This will be explained shortly.

This is a blog about doodles scrawled in school workbooks. This is the result of almost two decades of strenuous activity (still ongoing, in fact) - often humiliating and degrading. This is an apocalypse of thought patterning. The doodles were originally borne of boredom and sensory deprivation (a rainy breaktime - locked in the classroom) one day at primary school circa 1992. The doodles grew more complex and life-forces began to emanate from them. Through secondary school, college, to the gutter (a surprisingly educational place); fifteen years later and I am still drawing them and it has nearly killed me, haha! I intend to show the reader how the smallest ideas can overwhelm one's life, and even depose of one's own inner narrative, as bizarre as this may sound. Proposals will be made for experiments that the reader will be urged to perform. I will also encourage the reader to design or resurrect creatures, imaginary technologies and characters of their own making as a stand against the dark forces of the Job Centre, society, 'populist thought flatlining', etc. I got sacked from a minimum-wage job in 2002 for doodling in a notebook. Surely upon leaving school there is finally true freedom to doodle? Well there isn't. The real world is actually more disciplinarian than school, and doodling is barely tolerated. I seek to amend this. Call me a terrorist if you will, but I am weak, twatty, (undiagnosed) autistic, unemployable and feeble - it is not me who instils fear, but the doodles themselves - their potential: the doodles which gain life and dart around the beholder's subconscious, rewiring thought patterns to allow more characters to spill in from beyond the mantle of one's creative consciousness.

All will be explained as clearly as possible. You do not need to know my name - this is irrelevant. All that matters is the imagery!