I’ve been waking up from hypnagogic and/or dreaming states the last few days, and this morning’s was one I thought I’d share. A “vision,” I suppose, though more a teaching vision than prophetic. I saw a certain comic series (you may recognize it below) by a particular creative team, but I must admit that I still tend to default to writer over everyone else, so the writer was foremost in my mind at first. Anyway, in this “vision,” writer and comic-series-protagonist collapsed together into a presence that created and immersed himself into an alternative but nested reality. That is, he created a comic book (possibly within a comic book?) wherein existed a secondary, nested version of the protagonist. I was aware that a second “creator” had participated, a female presence. I’ll get to her in a moment.
Now, the creating-presence—I’ll call him Prime—also immerses himself into the new reality where Secondary exists. And Secondary is “son” of Prime, after a fashion, but also something more: a comic book character & protagonist of the secondary world, but still existing, still real. Still volitional in some way. And in the vision, Secondary exists in a ‘60s sci-fi pulp super-spy setting. It all looks quite B&W rich line art but retro & almost faded, yellowed paper—almost newsprint. Meanwhile, Prime seems to saturate the comic and seemed to me to act as the administrator for the super-spy agency Secondary works for. Prime also seemed to shadow several other characters within that reality while being a kind of authorial omni-presence (all-knowing boxes of narration, I suppose). And through this comic-reality, Prime learns about himself-as-author-creator-dad-protagonist-but-more. However, he has the danger of getting caught up and too submerged or immersed into this reality, within that comic-world. The female presence/partner warns him of this, amongst other things. Although both presences participated, Prime seems to invest more of himself into this reality, at least on a first glance at what most immediately results.
Now, there’s the hermetic and gnostic way to read this vision, and those are valid ways to get at it. But I also considered something more. I’m really tempted to read Prime as Secondary’s HGA or God-Soul or Sacred-Dove, etc. And Prime has helped instigate and author circumstances in Secondary’s life, hoping eventually that Secondary looks up and sees, realizes that he’s in a comic book. From one perspective, Secondary could see himself as the center of the universe, the hero of Creation, but he could also see Prime as the gnostic demiurge fashioning the world—the entire fucking comic book world as far as Secondary is concerned. But Secondary only recognizes Secondary: Pandimensional Super-Spy—that comic, his comic. And maybe he even has privileged knowledge, to a point, of his reality, and maybe he chooses to embrace seeing himself in pulp retro super-spy sci-fi terms/aesthetics. However, the people in his life don’t; from his perspective, the other characters in his narrative don’t. (A character is not a person, I’ve been told, but when your life is art is enchantment, well…)
Alternatively, those other persons will agree, but only if they buy into Secondary’s comic book/art-world and imagine themselves as characters in his story and world.
And what if everyone lives in their art-world instigated by their Prime selves, and what if they mistake their sense of that Prime for God, for Creator and demiurge?
Note: This comic analogy grows more nuanced when you do factor in comic creative teams.
Now, the problem is that things like Leviathan and similar forces seek to impose only one art-world on all of those potential protagonists and all of those thwarted, glorious, and weird crossovers (Secondary: Pandimensional Super-Spy Meets Ragna, Daughter of Power, and so on).
Image: Spectre over Los in Plate 6 of Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion by William Blake Copy E