Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (70 page)

“But not you,” says Gordon.

“No… not me,” says Lloyd. “Not now, at least. That’s why I’m here doing my penance, trying to provide a little enlightened adult guidance to a carload of snarky but redeemable teenage jerk-offs.”

“Hey, I resent that,” D.H. says. “I haven’t jerked-off in this car even once. Only Skip has….”

“Actually, I just had a healthy orgasm in my pants,” jokes Skip, who’s finally decided to stop dry-humping Twinker and join the conversation. “Y’know, this whole egregore thing kind of sounds like orgone monsters, if you ask me”

“Oh, Skip, don’t even go there,” Twinker says.

“Yeah, we’re
way
past orgone monsters now,” D.H. puts in.

“No, really…” says Skip. “I mean, I may not be as smart as you guys, but I’m pretty sure orgone monsters have something to do with this.”

“I can see how there might be a tenuous connection,” Lloyd admits. “I don’t know much about orgone monsters
per se
, but I
do
know that the term ‘orgone’ originated with Wilhelm Reich. He was a brilliant psychoanalyst, a colleague of Freud. Orgone was the word Reich used to describe a universal life force that gathers in clouds–”

“See! I told you!” crows Skip.

“– and in erections. He even thought it could be measured as an electrical discharge at the moment of orgasm.”

“Cool!”

“According to Reich, orgone could also be accumulated in devices of his own making called Orgone Boxes, which he employed to cure cancer and impotence–thus leading to even more, and happier, erections.”

“I’m lovin’ this guy!”

“Yeah, but the U.S. government hated him,” Gordon fills in. “In the fifties, they banned all his books and threw him in jail. Then he kind of suspiciously died of a heart attack one day before he was up for parole.”

“I thought only Nazis did shit like that!” Skip’s sense of moral outrage is acting up again, just like it did when Lloyd was recounting the tribulations of Patty Hearst.

“The Nazis banned Reich’s books earlier,” says Lloyd, “back in 1933, when he came out with
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
, a book in which he explained his theory that fascism is a result of sexual repression.”

“Oh, Hitler must’ve
loved
that one,” says Skip.

“I’ll bet he had a tiny weenie,” Twinker adds.

“It’s really quite fascinating how Reich worked everything out,” Lloyd says with genuine admiration. “Reich saw the budding Nazi movement as the latest manifestation of what he called the ‘mechanistic-mystical complex,’ which he felt had its origins in the breakdown of earth-oriented paganism and the subsequent rise of the anti-sexual, rigidly authoritarian ideology of the Holy Roman Empire. Ever since paganism fell out of favor, Reich said, ‘the biologic core of humanity has been without social representation.’ And what happens when we try to repress our bodily sensations, especially the sexual-genital feelings that paganism once held sacred? Well, again, according to Reich, that repression gives rise to a disturbing mix of mystical and militaristic fixations that have their root in the master fixation of a transcendent, unknowable God far beyond the Earth. That mix of fixations–or the mechanistic-mystical complex, as he calls it–grows like body armor around people, turning them into unfeeling automatons. And that, in turn, leads straight to patriarchal domination and to its even uglier stepson, fascism.”

“So basically, what you’re saying is: if we have a lot of sex, we won’t turn into Nazis,” Skip concludes.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly in those terms…” says Lloyd. “Let’s just say that an active, guilt-free sex life might provide some immunity against fascist egregores. Even masturbation would probably be of help.”

“Did you hear that, Gordon?” Skip asks him. “You can fight fascism by jerking-off! Dude, you’re in luck!”

“I already knew that,” Gordon says. “You don’t see me wearing jackboots and goose-stepping around shouting, ‘
Heil Hitler!
’ do you?” At the rate he’s been beating his meat, the fascist egregores don’t stand a chance.

“The Gnostics had some similar ideas,” Lloyd says, “although I doubt Reich was aware of them. But there are interesting parallels…. For one, the Gnostics used the word ‘Archon’ to signify the evil servants of the Demiurge, but in ancient Greece ‘Archon’ was a commonly used term for ‘ruler’ or ‘authority.’ The Gnostics also believed people could be ‘Archontized’–or converted to the antagonistic fanaticism of the Archons and blinded to their own Divine Spark. Some Gnostics deliberately participated in orgiastic sex rituals designed to build up resistance to the Archons’ intrapsychic attempts at leading them astray. So in
that
sense, the Archons could be considered identical to fascist egregores.”

“But if Archons are egregores, and egregores are created by ordinary groups of people, then is all the evil in the world just…
us
?” Gordon asks.

“I don’t think so,” says Lloyd, “and here’s why: According to the Theosophists, the origin of the word ‘egregore’ predates its Old English usage. It supposedly derives from the ancient Greek word ‘egregori,’ which means ‘watcher’ or ‘guardian.’ In fact,
The
Book of Enoch
gives the name Grigori to the fallen angels–more commonly known as the Watchers–who married the daughters of Seth and sired a race of giants with them. Which, of course, takes us right back to where we started with the Nefilim, the Lam, and the ancient gods of Mesopotamia.”

“Interdimensional aliens and food for the Moon again.”

“Exactly.”

□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

Okay, can I just butt in here for a minute? Lloyd is actually doing a pretty good job of describing the Dark Brotherhood, believe it or not. (Sometimes it helps, I guess, to know an organization from the inside out.) Fascist egregores and interdimensional aliens are great metaphors for Archons, so I have no problem there. And all that paranoid-sounding talk about how those otherworldly parasites feed off the negative emotions of humanity is basically right on…. But there’s one thing that Lloyd hasn’t gotten around to mentioning, and I think it’s important. It’s the fact that the Brotherhood of Light feeds off the life force of humanity, too–but with one major difference:

The Brotherhood of Light feeds off our love.

To put it simply, if there wasn’t any love in the world, the Brotherhood of Light wouldn’t be here. Daimons wouldn’t have any way of connecting with their charges, empathy and good fellowship and selfless service to others would be just empty concepts, and we’d all be fucked. And I don’t mean fucked in a happy, orgasmic, Wilhelm Reich kind of way–which can make the Brotherhood of Light grow stronger. I mean the un-fun kind of fucked. As in fucked over.

Lloyd is right: it’s a predatory universe. Suffering is fundamental to this realm and those who are attracted to it are generally indifferent to the suffering of others. While it may seem unfair that spiritual entities feed off our energy while we’re incarnated in human bodies, that’s just the way it is. The only real choice we have is between victimization and cooperation. What I mean by that is that every one of us has a choice to make on a daily, hourly, or even minute-by-minute basis: do we just passively allow our life force to feed the Dark Brotherhood, or do we consciously choose to feed the Brotherhood of Light?

It’s not as straightforward a choice as you might think. The Dark Brotherhood can be monstrously seductive. It’s easier to snuff out your own Divine Spark than to pick a fight with the darkness that surrounds you. That’s why so many souls get lost when they spend time on Earth. And that’s why so many of us choose to reincarnate–to help those lost souls find their way back to the Light. It’s a risky mission, obviously. We could get lost, too. But it’s also one of the quickest paths to spiritual advancement.

And frankly, we must not be all that spiritually-advanced if we’re still incarnating on Earth, for whatever the reason. Because while we’re here, we almost always end up as predators, too–just as guilty of feeding off the life force of others as any Armani-suited servant of the Dark Brotherhood, or any sphincter-probing bug-eyed alien.

Think about that the next time you’re trying on a pair of nice new Italian leather shoes… or chomping into a fat ham sandwich.

FLAMING SHARK BRAIN DAYDREAM

W
hile Lloyd’s Bentley purrs along the flat asphalt ribbon of Highway 46 climbing into the forested foothills southwest of Paso Robles, Gordon smells pine needles, ocean air, and sun-baked earth and his heart starts to gladden. He’s doesn’t understand
why
he’s so much happier until he realizes they’re on the same route his father used to drive to get them to their cabin in Morro Bay. Soon they’ll be arriving at the Pacific Coast Highway, where a turn to the left in Gordon’s youth would have taken them past the little town of Harmony (Population: 9), and the sun-faded fishing piers jutting into the calm blue sea from the beaches of Cayucos.

At that point in the trip, Gordon would always lean forward in his seat, scanning the horizon through the windshield for the three glorious cooling tower stacks rising above the Pacific Gas and Electric plant near Morro Bay harbor, and beyond that, the magnificence that was Morro Rock. He’d always let out a joyous shout when he saw it
(“There it is!”):
Morro Rock rising like a gargantuan pile of petrified cow dung plopped on the bay’s shoreline, towering above everything else, massive and monolithic, as high and wide in Gordon’s eyes as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

And then they’d get to their cabin with its flat, slanting roof and its Chinese red door and the tangle of ice plants in the front yard instead of a lawn. And they’d pull into the crushed oyster shell driveway and park under the carport next to a mahogany day-fishing boat that belonged to their next-door-neighbor, Qweep. Qweep was a retired Coast Guard officer whose real name was Clete, but when Gordon had been very small he’d insisted on pronouncing it like a bird’s chirp
(“Qweep!”),
and Qweep–a kind-hearted, self-effacing old bachelor–took delight in repeating it, so the name stuck.

Inside the cabin there would be bunk beds with nubby-textured chenille bedcovers, a fifties-era kitchen with an aquamarine Bakelite radio sitting on top of a starburst-patterned Formica countertop, and in the living room, a white vinyl Danish Modern couch bookended by two tall bamboo-framed watercolor paintings depicting solemn-eyed Mayan children–a boy in one, a girl in the other–standing in leafy jungle settings that could have been painted by the Douanier Rousseau.

Best of all, there would be a closet full of toys and games that Gordon’s parents would actually sit down and
play
with him. That’s why Gordon loved the cabin so much: Once they’d passed beyond its Chinese red front door, his parents seemed to forget their everyday annoyances. Their usual masks of irritation, boredom, or outright hostility were hidden away. The cabin was the only place where they dropped all their expectations and allowed Gordon the luxury of just being a little boy.

Soon after they’d unpacked and settled in, Qweep would usually stop by to say hello and challenge Gordon to a game of Chinese checkers. Later, they’d all go fishing–usually down at the pier, but sometimes out on Qweep’s boat. On those rare occasions, Gordon’s mother would stay behind to read her Harlequin Romance novels, tucking herself away somewhere in the sand dunes at the local beach.

Once, when Gordon was around five years old, Qweep had taken them out on a deep-sea fishing expedition in semi-rough weather. A squall line was coming in from the southwest and turning the sea choppy, but Qweep claimed to have seen much worse back in his Coast Guard days and the fishing was far too good to head right back in. Mal had just landed a fat, gaping-mouthed Vermilion Rockfish–or Red Snapper, as he called it. The sudden decompression suffered by the fish when it was brought up from the sea’s depths had made its ping-pong-ball-sized eyes bulge out from the sides of its head, which Gordon found both creepy and fascinating. About ten minutes earlier, Qweep had pulled up a slick, mottled brown halibut as big as a garbage can lid from the deep green water. And not long before that, Mal had hooked something called a Flag Fish, which looked a lot like the Red Snapper, only with red-and-white flanks striped like a barber’s pole. That fish’s eyes had been popping out its sockets, too.

Fish, for five-year-old Gordon, were just unbelievably weird.

The wind picked up and the rocking of Qweep’s boat became more noticeable. The sea’s waves grew taller and the troughs plunged deeper. From Gordon’s perspective, when they were deep inside a trough, the approaching waves looked ten times taller than Qweep’s little mahogany boat. Gordon felt ungainly, and hardly protected, in his orange canvas life jacket. He was afraid the wall of water would roll the boat over, or worse, break above their heads and drown them–but every time the trough lifted up and the wave smoothly went under them. Qweep didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned.

Suddenly, Mal’s hefty deep-sea rod bent over double, then snapped in two with a loud crack. “Holy Mackerel, Mal, what’ve you got there?” Qweep wondered aloud. “Tighten your drag…” he added, as an afterthought. Thick monofilament line was screeching off the reel.

“I can barely hold on,” said Mal as both of his big hands strained against the rod’s cork grips.

“Here… lemme take over,” Qweep said, scooting over close to Mal. Qweep took the broken rod and stood up with it in the center of the boat so he could turn with the line and follow it as it circled the prow. Gordon had to duck under it.

At that moment they were deep inside a sea trough with a wave at least sixteen feet high rolling toward them like a wall of green molten glass scribbled with sea kelp and cold white froth. The fishing line from Mal’s rod rose up and veered straight into the watery wall, and then they could all see it–the dark torpedo shape moving slowly into the swell, resolving clearer as it moved higher on the wall, until at last it was right across from them, as obvious as any fish in an aquarium: