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The Utility of Hyperglyphic Media
I’ve described in detail some of the elements that go into initiating and constructing, deconstructing and isolating egregores in Metamagical Grafitti, #1-4. These articles are freely available online in .pdf form, and provide a theory from which social superstructures can be reframed into a neo-platonic system.(1) Now, I’m going to explain why it is so effective to do this through the comic book medium, as well as provide some ideas into how this form of communication will evolve in the future.
It starts with a concept:
Hyperglyphics
Words build reality. They mean things. Changing the story of a culture is only possible by revising the metafiction within which we live. Words do not need to be able to be represented by letters. Animals use words. Word is the overarching communication medium that transcends the monad. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G-d, and the Word was G-d.” John 1:1. No matter, just word.. there is a line of thought that believes our reality is a manifestation of G-d speaking a single Word. We are capable of metaphors that can become themselves in a new dimension we built specifically for the occasion. Words are our most profound tool, for without it very little we take for granted would exist.
As a poet I take the creation of words with a certain seriousness. Using the various dictionaries at hand, hyperglyphics comes out something like this:
1. Hyper-
a. above: beyond: super-
b. excessively; excessive
c. that is or exists in a space of more than three dimensions
2. Glyph.
a. an ornamental vertical groove esp. in a Doric frieze
b. a symbolic figure or a character usu. incised or carved in relief
c. a symbol (as a curved arrow on a road sign) that conveys information non-verbally
I use this term to describe a media that is capable of generating tulpas, thoughtforms, egregores, and eventually autonomous mathematical personalities. It was with some amusement I found after completing the rough draft of this article the following translation from Isidore Isou, the artist-poet responsible for the foundation of the Lettrist Movement, using the phrase metagraphic: “Metagraphics or post-writing, encompassing all the means of ideographic, lexical and phonetic notation, supplements the means of expression based on sound by adding a specifically plastic dimension, a visual facet which is irreducible and escapes oral labelling…” It seems we have achieved something of this dream in the icons and notations with which virtual worlds are created and populated. Metagraphics and Hyperglyphics then, are the High Art of the new media.
As innocuous as they may seem, comics as they exist now and as they adapt to our future, are the very glue that maintain our social reality. To make this perfectly clear: we as a cultural superorganism do not continue to support in real time any fictional constructs unless they have acquired representational forms of, or have originated as, a cartoon or sequential art. Perhaps the reason for this is due to the way our minds recall images, or perhaps it has something to do with the immediacy of the sequential art medium. At some point a dedicated researcher may be able to satisfactorily explain this phenomena, but it is the implication that fascinates me and has driven my inquiry.
Comics then are a hyperglyphic medium, and a specific example of this is the ”’Nuff Said” issues that were released by Marvel during the month of February 2002.(2) Probably the most inventive issue from that month was X-Force? (#123), written by Peter Milligan yet without a single moment of actual dialogue. Doop is one of Marvel’s strangest and most powerful mutants, and Peter Milligan has always had a serious psychedelic bent to his writing. Thus, this issue devoted to the interior of Doop’s psyche, where he’s accidentally trapped the rest of the X-Force?, is easily my favorite of the ”’Nuff Said” issues. Grant Morrison kind of cheated, tossing in one balloon of dialogue on the last page of the ”’Nuff Said” story for New X-Men (#121), but the way he and Frank Quietly deal with communication in the astral between Jean Grey and Emma Frost is very interesting. Using a cross between emoticons and representative symbols, the primary conversation is easily followed no matter what language you speak or read. Punisher #7 and Elektra #6 also stand out as having an incredibly visual narrative without need of dialogue, yet both those titles and Amazing Spiderman #39 relied on text in the frame to advance the story, while Uncanny X-Men #401 and X-Treme X-Men #8 both seemed to show scenes where dialogue was occurring, but simply omitted the dialogue balloons. Still, these issues all serve as examples of creating a narrative without relying on specific languages to relay information. Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly in particular are engaged in a form of semiosis in the way they built the conversational constructs.
Rather than burden the curious occultist with the academic constraints of semiology though, I will try to stick to the signifiers of magick and refer to this as sigilization. Sigilization is the process of producing a glyph, where the information conveyed may not necessarily be that encrypted by the glyph’s creator, however large books of hundreds of these glyphs will allow the casual reader to pull away a basic overall sense of the intentions of the initial creators. These glyphs are still words, despite being non-verbal. It might help then to think of Word as a noun, as an object that can be manipulated, and that manipulation is a kind of grammar; that manipulation is the verb applied to the noun.
“The word ‘sigil’ comes from the Latin sigillum, meaning a sign or signature. In magical terms a sigil is a (unitary) glyph derived from a name, word, or magical formula by means of a direct analogical process… If the appropriate process is reversed, then the name or word may be retrieved from the pattern of the sigil. However, if the sigil is condensed or compressed, or if it was generated using a system you are unfamiliar with, you may be unable to decipher it by reversing the coding process…
“The important idea is that the seed or essence of a force, concept, or pattern is equally in the sigil (glyph, image) and the name (word, logos). Sigil and name are two facets of the same thing. They could be said to relate in much the same way as the Sanskrit terms yantra and mantra.”
Bill Whitcomb, “The Magician’s Companion” p461, Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN 1993, 1997
Applied hyperglyphics (or a hyperglyphic construct) is also capable of informing sub-symbolic sets of information with their own deeper meaning.(3) Sub-symbolic sets are areas that can be taken as noise against which the conveyed information rides, and can be the primary carrier of subconscious communication. Using techniques such as flashing colors can generate almost epileptic reactions at high enough resolution:
“Flashing colors are two complementary colors that appear to flash when placed side by side. This effect is said to help attract the subtle energies associated with the colors. Flashing colors are often used on temple objects or banners (such as the four Enochian tablets) that are intended to act as attractors for akashic currents.”
Bill Whitcomb, The Magician’s Companion, p.264
As a kind of pre/post-verbal series of words, an informed approach to hyperglyphics allows direct communication with the adaptive, intuitive area of the brain. Creating persuasion, creating entrainment, becomes doubly effective when it involves the entire brain. It’s also incredibly useful when you need to communicate with someone who does not share a common verbal language. Having recently read it, I immediately think of The Saga of the Swamp Thing #32, where Pog, an extraterrestrial, explains his planet’s turn to fascist cannibalism to Swamp Thing by drawing pictures in the sand. This may seem simplistic, but the truth is that we have a secondary layer of communication skills latent in our right brain. We study English throughout our school life here in the states, but it seems that this symbolic communication is largely overlooked.
Every image in a comic approaches your conscious mind before you read it, comes alive as you observe it, then recedes from consciousness as you glance on down the page.(4) Over time, a set of associations is generated by the colorations, the panel shapes, and the way the gutters are assembled that inform the story being told in the balloons. Taken as a whole, communication can be presented that appeals to the entire construct of the psyche with information seeping into the intuitive awareness, language for the analytic consciousness, and sub-symbolic communication to the subconscious and through that into the unconsciousness of the reader.
These principles were foundational to the science behind the Tarot. In fact, the use of non-verbal words as communication goes back at least to the godform Enki, while the use of currency, a ‘word of power,’ is mythically connected to Erichthonius, Athenian King also responsible for the invention of the Chariot, a trump within the tarot’s major arcana. Tarot is an attempt to map all of human interaction through symbolism. Personality types are addressed, stages of life long cycles are depicted, and the memories of godforms are archived within the standard 78 card deck.(5) All of this is done using symbolism that gives every appearance of being carefully conceived hundreds, if not thousands of years ago.
Think for a moment about the symbols in your very presence. This includes the glyphs on your monitor, the icons on the desktop, all the logos on the spines of books nearby. This is a different language, one that may very well have it’s roots in the verbal language of the particular sigil’s crafter; ultimately though this right-brained language will transcend as these images spread globally. Here’s the thing, the reason why this is so incredibly important: it’s because we’ve never before been at this moment in history, and shit’s about to spiral out of control.(6)
For aeons the delineation of symbolic communication has been the province of the magicians of the community. They are the keepers of the calendars, they create and officiate the social rituals, and they maintain and protect the transfer of these symbol sets through the generations. An obvious example of this is the Tree of Life, and in fact a great deal of effort has gone into adapting the current permutations of the Tarot to the Tree of Life.
The Tree of Life is ultimately a way to describe the path an abstraction takes to become material. It would be best applied in place of philosophy courses for engineers. Instead, us magicians seem to be the only social circle conversant with the damned thing.(7) We find in the patterns a way to classify and to structure both the material and the.. well, spiritual is a bit limiting, let’s just call it the noosphere. As Alan Moore says through the mouth of Hermes: “How could humans perceive gods… abstract essences… without clothing them in imagery, stories, pictures… ...or picture-stories, for that matter.”
We are moments away from having holographic advertisements planted all around us. As we step into this age of information saturation, having the skills to navigate beyond the spectacle will become crucial. Symbolic literacy is necessary for the global civilian, the nomad, the trickster. When you play these roles, you’ll need to understand how the locals mapped their culture, and these maps are driven by this right-brained symbolism.(8)
I promised to explain how comics create actual godforms that can be utilized magically up there at the beginning of this article, and I haven’t exactly laid it out yet. We’re getting there, don’t worry. First you need to see how this incorporation of right and left brained communication is laid out, because both processes need to be engaged. In a number of lectures, Timothy Leary describes how involved an experience in a cathedral can become if one were a peasant in England in the 1600’s. The involvement of the whole brain influences trends in the fabric of reality.(9) Conscious focus of both sides of the brain does influence probability. This is vastly important, and the implications in the hands of the majority of the race is staggering.(10) Semiologists are finding that the axioms of hermetic and cabbalistic theory of consciousness holds true:
“Offering their own speculative mapping of the connotations of top and bottom, Kress and van Leeuwen argue that where an image is structured along a vertical axis, the upper and lower sections represent an opposition between ‘the Ideal’ and ‘the Real’ respectively. They suggest that the lower section in pictorial layouts tends to be more ‘down-to-earth’, concerned with practical or factual details, whilst the upper part tends to be concerned with abstract or generalized possibilities (a polarization between respectively ‘particular/general’, ‘local/global’ etc.). In many Western printed advertisements, for instance, ‘the upper section tends to… show us “what might be”; the lower section tends to be more informative and practical, showing us “what is”’.”
Daniel Chandler, “Semiotics for Beginners”
To me, this resonates deeply with the symbolism inherent within much hermetic lore. “As above, so below” can now be seen as a byproduct of the way our brains are trained to interpret information. But this only begins to touch on why we can use iconic symbolism to program and reprogram ourselves and others. Back to Daniel Chandler’s text one last time:
“Umberto Eco argues that through familiarity an iconic signifier can acquire primacy over its signified. Such a sign becomes conventional ‘step by step, the more its addressee becomes acquainted with it. At a certain point the iconic representation, however stylized it may be, appears to be more true than the real experience, and people begin to look at things through the glasses of iconic convention’.”
Daniel Chandler, “Semiotics for Beginners”
Our brains store memories in a fragmented, holographic way. Part of an image is easier to recall than the totality of an image, and over time a cartoon representation can acquire a lot more significance mentally than a photograph of that which the cartoon represents. How the brain processes visual media is of importance because if you give the brain what it most easily can process, it develops an attachment, a fondness, for the vehicle through which that information was presented. This increases the propensity of the brain to fall into a trance state while absorbing the information, and generates more intense thoughts, which in turn empower the pure ideational construct that lies behind the media.
The drawing and lettering of comics has a lot in common with the ancient arts of Calligraphy. Alex Grey discusses the spiritual nature of this art in his book “The Mission of Art,” and his description of the scribe at work reads as follows:
“Calligraphy demands that the artist-scribe maintain attentive, focused clarity as he or she works. The Torah scribe, or sofer, using a carefully cut goose feather or reed pen, writes the sacred words in permanent ink on a valuable piece of parchment, prepared from the skin of a kosher animal. The proper intention and concentration, known as kavanot, must be in accordance with the laws that govern the writing of the holy words. Each word must be intoned before its inscription, and before one of the names of God is written, the sofer brings to full awareness the holiness of that name and writes that knowledge. When the scribe is distracted, becomes drowsy, or is too agitated, he must stop his work and refocus; some even take a ritual bath of purification. There are rules about what errors are correctable and what errors constitute an irreparable flaw… The artist does not merely copy the surface of things. This is regarded as art of the lowest order. The artist does not merely master the techniques of brushwork and composition that allow full self-expression. The highest class of artist spiritually unites with universal energy, and the resulting art becomes a divine outpouring.”
Alex Grey, “The Mission of Art” pp. 212-213
This infusing of a work of art with an energy, an intention, that is communicated subconsciously to the viewer or reader, helps maintain the egregoric influences that motivated the work in the first place. It is easy to understand how these codes followed by the scribes broke down significantly in the wake of the moveable type printing press, and perhaps the subsequent destabilization of institutions was due to the lack of this focused attention previously necessary to the perpetuation of the institution’s memetic constructs. Ritual magic follows a number of similar restrictive conventions which are designed to lead the mind through a series of tasks to focus and channel ideational energies. The construction of the four watchtowers of the elements and the tablet of union in Enochian magic,(11) for example, work because of the intense concentration to produce these tablets. Subjective and objective reality merge under the intensity of concentration, and communication with non-corporeal intelligences is the specified result of these series of meditations.
We as humans are incredibly used to slipping into trances. Creating altered brain states is of such importance to us most of us own a number of mind-altering technological devices, including televisions, music equipment, brain-wave generators, computers, and video game equipment. Suspension of disbelief is a kind of trance, and we spend cash in ever-increasing amounts to experience this and other moods vicariously through these and other devices. As Channel Null states, in describing the metafictions behind mega-rites, “These things are amazingly easy to build. Humans are trance machines… Language, while troublesome in many ways, offers us a means for… mental telefusion.” This is the powersource of these watchers in the abstract, that now govern our society; we are the source.
Why then is it that I find comics so intriguing from a magical point of view? Why not these other media forms – movies, or video games, television, or music? It is because the artist, if in tune with the energy of pure ideational form, can translate that into a material presence, which a reader can encounter, and through doing so come to an apprehension of that pure ideational form from which the artist first drew energy. Comics can act as a spiritual pathway to a godform, both in their creation and in their appreciation, because of this phenomena. And even more important, comics are presented in the precise way necessary to leave a lasting impression on the memory and subconscious of the reader, and that alone makes them incredible tools, both for personal and societal transformation. Change the story underlying society, use the current superstructure as the scaffolding of the new words with which the new story is told.
PostScript:
Masashi Tanaka (Gon's creator) has said, "This work contains no dialog or onomatopoetic words. People always ask me why I have done this. From the beginning, I didn't think it was necessary. Manga should be without grammar. I also think that it is strange to give animals human language and make them talk. What I set out to do with Gon was to draw something that was more interesting than anything you could say in words. Manga still has great potential that does not exist in other media. I plan to continue developing the art of expression on paper."
(source: wikipedia)
FOOTNOTES
(1) Metamagical Grafitti #1-4 available online at http://wu.sauceruney.com/mg.htm
(2) In February 2002, Marvel Comics released a number of dialogue-free comics, but only a few of the titles were completely free of text.
(3) As an example, consult the various scales of color in The Magician’s Companion, compiled by Bill Whitcomb.
(4) This power dynamic is not unlike climbing a mountain.
(5) I contend that the standard tarot deck is incomplete due to the expanded experiences of the human race, but this is a topic for another time.
(6) You absolutely must read The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil.
(7) I personally find it a frustrating mess, and want very much to re-invent the symbolism from an English base, rather than Hebrew.
(8) When symbols re-appear throughout culture, I’m not surprised: the source is always the same, the right-brain. Just look at how many countries have five pointed stars on their flag.
(9) See my article Metamagical Grafitti #3 for references.
(10) I foresee the Age of Capricorn, some two thousand years off, a time much like that described by Michael Moorcock in The Dancers At The End of Time, immortals who can fabricate any substance or item at will, who translate between energy and physical form of their choosing, playful elements so removed from our conception of human that it will be impossible to recognize even their concept of existence.
(11) See The Magician’s Companion, Model 91, for a look at these tables.
REFERENCES
Comics:
The Saga of the Swamp Thing #32, DC (reprinted as Essential Vertigo: Swamp Thing #13, Dec. 97)
X-Force (#123) Marvel Comics NY,NY (Feb, 2002)
Punisher #7 Marvel Comics NY,NY (Feb, 2002)
Elektra #6 Marvel Comics NY,NY (Feb, 2002)
Uncanny X-Men #401 Marvel Comics NY,NY (Feb, 2002)
X-Treme X-Men #8 Marvel Comics NY,NY (Feb, 2002)
New X-Men (#121) Marvel Comics NY,NY (Feb, 2002)
Promethea #15 America’s Best Comics, LLC
Other Resources:
Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/
Alex Grey, “The Mission of Art” Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boston MA, 1998
Bill Whitcomb, “The Magician’s Companion” Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN 1993, 1997
Channel Null, “Egregoric Influence: http://infernalscience.wordpress.com/2006/05/08/ergeroric-inflitration/“
“Selections from the Manifestos of Isidore Isou” edited and Translated by David W. Seaman, http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/lettrist/isou-m.htm
Wikipedia: Gon (Manga),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gon_%28manga%29#Description
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