THE
ALIGNMENT
Proposition
1
What
some call Order in the universe others call God, but they are one and
the same.
Explanation
Having
attested to the alignment of the Plough and the oldest fell Black
Combe,
only to coincide with a rhythm change in the White House during my
lifetime, I asked myself whether the alignment indicated Order or
Chaos in the universe. The argument for Order was that the alignment
only coincided with a rhythm change in the White House, so backed up
that idea that the Enlightenment is the simultaneous astrological and
sociological de-centering of Man, and the White House its child in
terms of both philosophy and build. It is easy to see how one might
consider the alignment indicating Order; but Chaos is a different
matter. The argument for Chaos is that the alignment would happen
with greater regularity if it were a clocktick universe, rather than
simply “when we want it to happen.” Still, the correct
endorsement
turned out to be Order, for there are
cosmological events that only happen once
every
few thousand years or
so.
So having determined that the alignment indicates Order in the
Universe the next step was to recognise that in this case Order in
the Universe is synonymous with God.
*
Proposition
2
Metaphysics
is the place where science and religion meet.
Explanation
The
scientific mode or even “tone of mind” would be to call
it Order
in the universe; and the religious mode or “tone of mind” would
be to call
it
God – and as shown they can be synonymous with one another.
Therefore metaphysics is the place where science and religion meet.
Q.
E. D.
*
Proposition
3
If
God is synonymous with Order in the Universe, it follows that God is
not extrinsic to matter.
Explanation
This
view might be trendy at the moment, as scientists at C. E. R. N. hunt
for the God Particle, which has been labelled a daft misnomer by
others still who tend to believe that God is perfect and matter is
error. The belief, though, that God is not
extrinsic to matter dates back at least as far as Spinoza, for whom
there was no substance that wasn’t part of God. The
counter argument is that the alignment is not God itself but a mere
example of a state of Order in the universe that is itself
not
visible and is synonymous with God.
*
Proposition
4
If
the alignment is perfect, God is perfect too.
Explanation
We
already know that by definition God is perfect and the
alignment does not necessarily let us stare at the perfection that is
God but merely signifies the Order in the whole universe at large
that is synonymous with God. To stare at the alignment is not to be
let down about the perfection of God, but God is more than the
alignment itself.
*
Proposition
5
It
is not the alignment itself but the Order in the universe which it
indicates which is synonymous with God.
Explanation
Here
we seem to be slightly tautological. I
have been teasing this point out. At the moment of the alignment,
which lasted for a good, few nights, there were other things going on
in the
world of simultaneity,
synchronicity
and syncretism
and these were also connected into the same scope of Order as
the alignment. God is the overall picture and the alignment an
example by which we can measure the Order.
*
Proposition
6
It
is good to get to the root of one’s own beliefs but you must
understand the way it seems is that necessarily all belief-systems
are woven in to this religious stance by
the alignment,
even atheism.
Explanation
In
the alignment, we see that atheism and theism lose their polarities.
The Order in the universe would be what an atheist makes of it, and
even if that is all he believes in, as shown it is synonymous with
God, and can be just the same as what a religious person would take
from the event. An atheist and a theist can in all likelihood agree,
and only agree, on the matter of our Plough alignment. The alignment
factors all faiths into its happening, like the
goal of
syncretism, almost
attesting
to that notion that Blissful Lovingness is where all religions meet.
Rather than different religions connecting
though,
it is even more startling that religion and science agree, and
religion and atheism agree in the event of the alignment.
*
Proposition
7
Because
the alignment is about one-ness, it is possible to use it to
undermine and undo presupposed binary oppositions in arguments.
Explanation
We
have seen how science and religion can be a binary undone, also how
even theism and atheism can be undone. This is propitiated by the
basic principle that Order in the universe, which can be appreciated
by science or atheism too, is synonymous with the idea of God when it
comes to the alignment.
*
Proposition
8
If
Order in the universe is synonymous with God, we are all one and our
differences reconciled.
Explanation
If
an atheistic scientist recognises Order in the universe in the event
of the alignment, and a Deist believes the alignment a manifestation
of God’s
work,
then they essentially agree on the same thing if it is true that
order in the universe is synonymous with God, and
are but calling the same thing by two different names.
*
Proposition
9
If
the alignment is not God itself but just an example of Order in the
universe which is synonymous with God, it may not be the case that
God is not extrinsic to matter.
Explanation
If
the alignment were God manifested, it would be a God of atoms, stars,
particles et al, but seeing as the alignment is indicative of a sense
of Order in the Universe that stretches beyond the alignment itself,
and
which we are saying is synonymous with God, God
might be the underlying, organisational principle and still retain
exemption from the condition of matter.
*
Proposition
10
That
Order in the universe and God are two different names for the same
thing creates common ground between science and religion, also
atheism and religion.
Explanation
This
point reiterates previous points. It
shows that in practice
what science may call Order in the universe, religion may call God,
and despite their seeming to not agree, they could be one and the
same thing, under
different appellations.
*
Proposition
11
It
may be magnetism that underlies the variability of belief when it
comes to the matter of the alignment.
Explanation
Maybe,
we are all but iron filings firked to the moon in the same way and
our differences are differences created by language being stubborn
and awkward. When I say we all agree that the alignment is the
alignment, it makes my home the magnetic, telluric and gravitational
foot. It endorses the yellow, McDonalds ‘M’ in the word “them”
in
the advert. It
could be that magnetism unites us where words keep us separated, and
the event of the alignment could be an essentially magnetic event in
and of itself on a scientific level. So it is that we could be all
stardust, all helplessly and
involuntarily charged in a magnetic way. Different fields of
language, to use David Morley’s phrase, could also be underlined by
a common principle when it comes to magnetism. The
magnetism of the stars, the magnetism of the oldest rock, could be
the same magnetism, and people part of it too.
*
Proposition
12
The
alignment and its inherent magnetism has the ability to turn a
staunch atheist into an agnostic.
Explanation
It
barely needs explaining that the observation of the alignment is so
sublime, even terrifying, that it truly becomes a good use of the
word “awesome” and has the power to change the polarity or the
charge of an atheist into something like an agnostic or even more.
Even an atheist who saw it would remark at the stunning sublimity of
it, and the coincidence with the rhythm change in the White House
too; and it might suddenly strike the atheist that God might really
exist after all, because the atheist would glimpse a sense of Order
in the universe that he had previously never considered, it being
bigger than one man’s brain. The atheist may have empirical science
behind him not believing in a man in the clouds, but the same
empiricism would lend the atheist towards a more religious or at
least agnostic stance if with his own eyes he perceived the Plough
alignment.
*
Proposition
13
It
does not diminish God to have him equate to Order in the universe,
nor muddy up and make dogmatic religion of science to have Order in
the universe equate to God.
Explanation
To
mention Order in the Universe might make a religious person
contemplate nothing but the cold, black, vacuity of space, which is
seen as Godless in science, and to mention God to a scientist might
have stigma for the scientist too, but truly in the alignment I can
see nothing other than the point of Order in the universe becoming
synonymous with God. It does not diminish God to call him Order in
the Universe for this backdates to the Bible and is not a new,
scientific notion at loggerheads with religion but old. Traditionally
God created the world from chaos; and therefore my documenting the
alignment takes on the role of rewriting Genesis to
a partial extent.
Still, I can see how a top scientist, wishing to find something out
would be frustrated if God was the only answer and he was not allowed
to go any further, ask any further questions.
*
Proposition
14
The
universe may just be a very elegant place.
Explanation
The
universe may be elegant but whether it is designed by God or not we
do not know. There are said to be three arguments for God in
philosophy: the ontological, the teleological and the cosmological.
My argument is that at some level the Order in the Universe which an
atheistic scientist believes in is synonymous with God, the same
thing but seen through different eyes, expressed with a different
name. The scientist and the theist could be working on the same
problem, onto the same thing, albeit in different disguises,
disguises which are superficial, while underlying it all we find the
same magnetism, which also ties in with the same instinct on
a human level.
*
Proposition
15
The
alignment doesn’t prove God but it does prove Order in the
universe.
Explanation
The
alignment doesn’t make the Bible stories literal. It doesn’t mean
we have captured a square of blue sky and examined it for evidence of
God and found it. To those that don’t naturally believe in God it
only proves Order in the mechanical operation of the Universe in
which man finds himself. It proves also that the sociological and the
astrological realms are connected. To some though that is enough for
a redefinition of what the word “God” means or should mean. It
means, as stated, that there is an Order in the universe that is
beyond our control – for surely the alignment was not down to human
manipulation
of the stars – and that the Order is elegant, and the universe
therefore benign. These things that are proven are as stated enough
for a God, a redefinition of God, for me, as a personal belief.
*
Proposition
16
If
the alignment recurred tomorrow night, without anything significant
to coincide with in the socio-political sphere, this argument would
not be invalid.
Explanation
This
is because what has happened has happened and we cannot change the
facts. It may make me look a bit ridiculous if only now I am bringing
this paper together and the next day the alignment recurs for nothing
special, no good reason, but I would still say Order
in the universe is the atheist’s God, and a scientific description
– or even equivalent – of a theist’s divinity. It would also
surprise me if the alignment did recur tomorrow. But I have become
convinced that what astro-physics labels Order in the universe and
what Christianity calls the Divine Being represents a false
dichotomy. That is the point.
*
Proposition
17
After
a while of talking about the alignment directly, one starts to wonder
if the whole conversation should be hidden or else abandoned.
Explanation
It
seems like wearing clothes out of the shame of one’s body being
naked; but in the case of the alignment and talking about it, it is
the shame associated with the Sin of Consciousness. So we reach a
point where the prelapsarian event of writing, which is freedom,
becomes changed. To liken this change of mood and tone of mind to the
Fall of Man is another step.
*
Proposition
18
Speaking
of the alignment directly might offend like sacrilege or blasphemy.
Explanation
Indeed,
this consolidates the sense of the divine nature of this event, this
theophany, where it is not just about awe but possibly law too. If it
is rude to stare, I was rude. If it is
blasphemous
or sacrilegious I was that. If God cannot be seen with the naked eye,
the work of God can still be seen with the naked eye. Unless
that is you deem it the work of, say, cosmic silence, in which case I
would reiterate my point about the false dichotomy between God and
the idea of Order in the universe.
*
Proposition
19
The
alignment is an object of worship that transcends difference and also
underlies the variability of religious beliefs.
Explanation
To
see the alignment is to be taken in by a religious event. The
religion itself, as in what religion you are, does not matter. The
alignment makes sense whatever religion you are, whatever colour or
creed. It is so sacred that some people, from a distance, without
seeing it, hide it under the name “white eyebrow.” It is not
inconceivable that it is the main focal point of an international
religion all the way round the world. A Rastafarian and a Jew and a
Christian could all be equally awe-struck by the alignment, which is
almost like saying we are equal in the eyes of God, and almost like
the idea that these different faiths share a common perception of
God, which I have argued is the same as the idea of Order in the
universe.
*
Proposition
20
The
alignment is evidence that Nature is the true architecture of State.
Explanation
Indeed,
I was just thinking about Wordsworth who sought passage to the divine
through the medium of Mother Nature, when I stumbled on this old
aphorism, this axiomatic truth. It is the connection between the
astrological event of the alignment and the socio-political sphere
that makes this axiom ring true to me. Still, it feels right-wing
compared with the exploration of the Future State, and maybe therein
you have the essential difference between the Right and the Left.
*
Proposition
21
Even
though the alignment is only really visible from this private
property, we can’t affect it to happen.
Explanation
Indeed
its being affected to happen is something beyond my knowledge as
well as control.
If there is manipulation, I cannot tell who by or where. I cannot
tell if the alignment arrives top-down from the State or bottom-up
from the farmers who plough
the land. It being the Plough alignment,
one would presume it might be the farmers… farming was the most
noble profession unto the Ancient Greeks. Wordsworth
too,
who sought the thoughts of the highest man in the words of the common
man, thought that the working class, the peasant class, had stronger
moral fibre than the higher classes. The
alignment also includes the plight of the
blacks…
I was once thanked for what I did for the blacks, even though I did
little except host the alignment. My friends came up from the south
after quite a few nights
of it and attested to it; then we went off on a camping trip in the
Lakes and that was the last I saw of the alignment. What would’ve
happened had we walked up Black Combe instead of the camping trip I
do not know. And ultimately, when it aligns, who else can you thank
but God?
*
Proposition
22
God
might exist on a mathematical plane without knowing of our existence.
Explanation
I
confess I read this online somewhere but have long since been
interested in the idea that answers to the divine will arrive in
maths. My father read Philosophy at the LSE in the 1960’s and went
there seeking answers to the divine but found instead the philosophy
of science. I have looked into the idea of a number sequence that
leads to Heaven in my own writing. Ascending
the fell I consider that Heaven is a pile of statistics no-one will
ever see – for I would seek to know if I have taken more steps up
the fell than any other – and reason that I will never find out.
But as for the proposition, it is but one of many concepts of God.
Aristotle’s God was “thought thinking on itself.” For others
God is but a stopped, glottal monosyllable. For others God is used to
fill holes in arguments. For others God is not to worship in blind,
dogmatic slumber but to behead, dethrone and become. For others God
is but a vain projection to cover up our fear of Nothingness. To
others we don’t deserve a God, are but monkeys with bigger brains
and more dextrous fingers. And yet to those who speak against God in
such ways, I ask what do you make of the alignment then? It
doesn’t strike me as random-ness and chance.
*
Proposition
23
One
is free to dismiss anything I say about the alignment because one has
the Right to Freedom of Religious
Belief.
Explanation
It
scarcely needs me saying that I am guessing with all this, for
academia proceeds by guesswork. It is not intended as a dogmatic
creed. It is not intended to be stamped on the hearts and minds of
humanity. Should you disagree with my thinking on my feet in such a
way you are free to form your own opinions. For example one of our
nearest neighbours lives at
Fell Brow which is further up the fell and looks out from it rather
than up at it, and the person from Fell Brow dismisses the validity
of the alignment because
it can’t be seen to come together from his house.
I can only report from the gravitational, magnetic and telluric foot,
where the Plough alignment is uniquely viable and visible. You find
the footpath up the fell begins here on our land, in the Combe field
which is a museum of a field, retaining a furrowed, rippled look from
old-fashioned ploughing technology of agrarian golden ages of yore.
It is in that field where the alignment really works best in terms of
visibility.
*
Proposition
24
You
cannot separate a religion from its indigenous landscape.
Explanation
Indeed
one of my favourite novels from when I was growing up, The
Buddha of Suburbia
by Hanif Kureishi, seems to posit a religion in a different place
from where it arose, and the difficulties inherent in that. Clearly
though, what they mean when they say you cannot remove a religion
from its indigenous landscape comes clear to you at the alignment.
The alignment makes it all make sense, the indigenous wisdom of the
saying. It’s the first time you see the landscape in a religious
light. It
connects the stars and the farm land.
*
Proposition
25
At
the alignment the main event was in the White House.
Explanation
My
father didn’t even acknowledge the alignment, preferring to stay
indoors and watch the inaugural speech of Mr. Obama whom they called
“the poet” on telly. For dad that was the main event and anything
in the cosmicomic sphere was trivial compared with it. I remember in
1997 when we still had a second house in London, he told me there was
probably going to be a rhythm change in the White House during my
lifetime, and he was right. He would’ve said the poet’s
democratic election was the main event and not the Plough alignment.
Still
there were people I knew among my southern friends, musicians mainly,
that foresaw the stars coming into alignment before they foresaw the
democratic election of the poet. I
suppose as momentum gathered they became one and the same goal. I
suppose the alignment showed that America is still the policeman of
the world, but derives its Enlightenment values from Britain.
*
Proposition
26
There
is a seer’s trance associated with the oldest fell.
Explanation
The
foothill of Black Combe, Sea Ness, was once upon a time, according to
a white witch who proof-read for Norman Nicholson, named Seer Ness
after a seer and his trance. Someone said the seer was St. Patrick
but it hasn’t been confirmed. I am now known as a seer by the
locals… I envisioned
the net and was
the witness from The
Lords And The New Creatures
too
as
a boy, attained the face of stars in adolescence, foresaw the future
on many fronts in 2000, including forewarning of September 11th,
attested to the white eyebrow in 2008 and even more recently attained
visual radio in the perceptual kingdom of the individual. What
place there is for a visionary in modern society is not known, in
terms of whether a visionary is still needed or not, only that you
shouldn’t expect to be paid for your visionary activity. It
might be the case that my geographical position is what accounts for
a history of visionary activity, such as the idea that September 11th
had to go through me as a schoolboy because I live in the house where
the Plough alignment is uniquely viable.
*
Proposition
27
The
Plough can come back to confirm the geometry and the dimensions
without actually aligning.
Explanation
Indeed,
the Plough has been back to confirm the geometry and dimensions, but
hovered above the socket, without actually being plugged in. I
captured it also on my new Smartphone, in a state of partial but not
complete alignment. We can do this again, and it likely will happen
again but whether or not it will be in my lifetime I do not know.
There may need to be a great event in the socio-political sphere. It
may need to be a coincidence, in the truest sense of two incidents
coinciding. You
notice last time it coincided with an American political event… it
is not certain whether or not it can coincide with an English
political event. So
far it has only been a partial alignment for various events in
England.
*
Proposition
28
Out
of many things, the alignment is said to be the only one that augurs
well
for
good sanity.
Explanation
This
one isn’t my own proposition, but is the comment of Mr. Mark
Velarde to a long paragraph I sent him containing some information
about what I had been through. I hesitate to replicate it herein
because I might wish to employ encryption, delight in a wilful
opacity. Still, it warrants noting that the Plough alignment does
augur well for good sanity, unlike, say, much of the other things I
got up to and went through in my life. If
I told you
what
they were it might cause problems.
*
Proposition
29
The
universe is a very mysterious place.
Explanation
Indeed
when my old band came up to attest to the alignment and we spoke of
God in the camper van, I mentioned that “mystery will remain a
constant.” I privilege uncertainty, believe the beauty of
uncertainties to be the only Absolute, believe that there is
indeterminacy at the core of all things, believe
that
what science calls indeterminacy art calls Undecidability, that
they are the same thing just one for the world of matter the other
the subjective realm, believe
that Keats was right with his utterance on Negative Capability,
believe
that
to end on a note of radical incertitude is to end in the dark which
is nourishing for the soul. In short Uncertainty prevails. But the
alignment points towards answers because it points towards God’s
benevolence, if you believe in God. I
for one know that I don’t know, but have taken to reconciling
dichotomous entities via the alignment.
*
Proposition
30
What
gets you most about the alignment is the silence.
Explanation
Indeed
it is very silent for something so magnificent and
of such immensity.
The whole universe is the same. There is more sound in me walking
round the kitchen in a circle than in the black vacuity of space,
because no sound travels in a vacuum. So the great, hulking, mammoth
universe is surprisingly quiet when it falls at your feet. As quiet
as a gilly flower curtseying like a delicate ballerina. So it is
false to then call the alignment a chord, like a secret chord Y,
because it is silent and makes no sound.
*
Proposition
31
Every
planet has its own colour and
‘Calliope’ means “beautiful face.”
Explanation
Now
that we are on to cosmic blues it bears noting that Every planet has
its own colour and also that Calliope means “beautiful face” in
Ancient Greek. These would be my two, mangled hands if I were playing
the piano up in the Alps. It’s better than saying “Every atom ate
our eyes” which is simply not true. The latter came from taking too
much LSD with Paul at the solar eclipse, and was in fact written
during the eclipse itself. There’s also “Blessed is peace as
blessed is ‘FUCK!’” which comes from a poem called ‘An Inward
Prayer’ and again turns the aural into the visual it being about
concealing
the
face of stars. These were my former mangled hands, and were supposed
to be the rudimentary
music
theory for the sheet where pictures grew but to say “Every planet
has its own colour” and “‘Calliope’ means “beautiful face”
in Greek,” is better because truthful. The
job of philosophy is all about finding out the truth after
all.
*
Proposition
32
The
alignment is not a vision as such.
Explanation
It
could conceivably
and potentially at least be
described as a theophany which is an epiphany that reveals the Lord;
but it is not a vision. To call it a vision would be to dismiss it to
being transient, or privileged, whereas it was proven all you needed
to do was stand in the garden here at the foot of the fell to be able
to see it; and no it was not a vagary of perception, nor a vision in
any sense of the word except that Martin Luther King sense of “I
have a dream,” and that dream coming true.
*
Proposition
33
Vision
is demarcated from mere wild hallucination by it containing a
revelation of the divine.
Explanation
I
have written at greater length about this elsewhere and so needn’t
repeat myself, only note that this proposition means vision has been
indoctrinated by the Church, who only brand Nature as evil.
*
Proposition
34
Apart
from the alignment this is nowhere.
Explanation
There
is no neighbourhood; there are no amenities; there is nowhere to go
if you don’t have a car. My father described this place as a
monastic retreat and a spiritual tonic, a good place to come to get a
piece of writing done. He said we were out of sight out of mind to
the powers that be. Equidistant
we’ve got Sellafield up the coast and the nuclear submarine factory
down the coast but in-between there’s nothing for miles. Even if I
could work, which I can’t on account of Stress being the arch-enemy
of mental illness, there is no job for miles. Here, you are really
stuck without a car. You have to gain freedom from accepting
limitation, that freedom that the visionary still knows when in his
cell.
*
Proposition
35
There’s
no such thing as “almost infinite.”
Explanation
This
proposition could
be regarded as a counter to those that say “there is no immutable
truth.” Poets often think history is malleable, selfhood mythology,
all writing fiction, and that there is no immutable truth. But
Bertrand Russell points out in History
of Western Philosophy
that a philosopher may regard truth as being timeless and eternal,
fixed and static, or at least believe in a type of truth that is so.
The idea that there’s no such thing as almost infinite seems to my
meagre mind to exemplify that philosophic truth, seems evidence that
some truth is immutable. But I might be wrong.
*
Proposition
36
It
may mean mayhem to consider that it’s all contained in the word for
“mother.”
Explanation
Well,
Henry Miller talks of the “ovarian shopping trolley.” I would
take this to mean the Plough. But I don’t remember anything else
from the Miller. The alignment is exquisite for something as
commonplace as the word for “mother.”
*
Proposition
37
It’s
also what Leonard Cohen means when he says “I thought you knew
where all the elephants lie down.”
Explanation
Another
cultural reference, this time the sung poetry of Leonard Cohen. I
quoted the line to my gf once upon a time whom it seems wanted to
meet up in dreams. Years later, after we had split, she came round.
By this stage we both knew – that “unreal world” as she called
it, the other side of the gate that leads to the fell, is the place
where all the elephants lie down.
*
Proposition
38
The
alignment was also foreshadowed by a Gomez album called Abandoned
Shopping Trolley.
Explanation
Indeed,
at the event
itself, when my old band fell up north in a camper van and first
filed out into the northern night, and I said there’s something
you’ve got to see, I advertised the Plough as “the abandoned
shopping trolley from the Gomez album of that name.” It
was just like normal speech, there were no airs and graces, there was
no great Unified
Theory
of Everything
following on for any of us – but that
may not be final.
*
Proposition
39
I
have said it before but the working equation for the alignment might
be the way the qwerty keyboard ends on M.
Explanation
There
would thus be the gravitational pull of the oldest fell written into
the digital network of computing. The magnetism of the alignment
would be inherent in the way we now write at a screen. What I mean is
when it comes to the alignment, the occasion IS the equation.
*
Proposition
40
The
alignment can reveal to you that you don’t know your own belief
system yet.
Explanation
Indeed,
I wasn’t sure what I believed in. In the conversation in the camper
van about God the rest of the band seemed convinced one way or the
other but I seemed to endorse a third party, saying (as stated) that
mystery will remain a constant. Please
see Proposition 29 for more on that.
*
Proposition
41
The
face of stars was a vision but the alignment not.
Explanation
The
face of stars was a true vision for being observable by three
gathered in the name as Jesus said but was also propitiated by
Rimbaudian derangement,
for Rimbaud said “the poet makes himself a visionary through a
prodigious derangement of the senses to attain the unknown” – and
we three gathered in the name had shared a spliff of pollen before
the face. It
was therefore true vision and derangement at the same time. The
Plough meanwhile was more than a vision even though it did arguably
at least
contain divinity, and it was not born of the derangement of the
senses to attain the unknown (as far as I know).
*
Proposition
42
As
Blake said the nature of visionary fancy is very little understood.
Explanation
As
stated in Proposition 33, vision is traditionally demarcated from
mere hallucination by containing a revelation of the divine. Blake
was said to be a true visionary for breakfasting with angels and
seeing the sun as Holy. Allen Ginsberg was visited by the ghost of
Blake who taught Ginsberg the notes to the Songs
of Innocence And Experience,
and was deemed insane for it because
there was no divinity.
With Rimbaud people go both ways – some think him a visionary for
being able to look at a factory and see a mosque, others think him
all about mere wild hallucination. If
the alignment was not a vision, nor wild hallucination born of
derangement, it must be something else.
*
Proposition
43
With
the Plough alignment the object
of vision
is perfect in geometry and proportion.
Explanation
Indeed
it could be said to be “to the inch.” It therefore points to
answers. It says the science works. It justifies a belief in progress
even if it is the same milestone over and again. You
could say it was an angel in its divine proportions. You could say it
is the sum of all difference connected. You could say it shows life
is mystery more than muddle. You could say the big mystery is whether
or not the shapes involved – the oldest fell, glaciated and
striated over thousands of years – and the Plough – are so
exactly fitting out of chance or design. And to be honest the
universe looks so much like it has been designed intelligently with
the alignment that I almost forgive my father for bringing us up to
believe in God.
*
Proposition
44
In
the camper van at the alignment, a song was needed.
Explanation
And
indeed it didn’t really matter what song or rather whose song. I
played a song by the songwriter Will Fenn called ‘Found Out’
which is a number I really like. He was a big influence on my song
writing at one point when I was younger, and a friend too. I thought
I should play the best song I could play and as well as I could do it
too. I think the guys in the band were impressed by the Will Fenn
number… even though it was a cover. I think they thought the
alignment terrifying and the song I played an absolute classic albeit
one not related in any way to the subject at hand, be
it astrologically or socio-politically.
*
Proposition
45
There
is no-one at hand to start monetising the alignment.
Explanation
The
only money I ever received at the time of the alignment was when I
took the band down to the Miners Arms and found a five pound note on
the floor. It wasn’t payment as such but I kept it and bought
myself a shot of whisky. Had it not been for that fiver I wouldn’t
have had any money when the band came up.
*
Proposition
46
The
alignment might
spell continued freedom and equality for the blacks.
Explanation
Writing
is freedom, as Martin Amis said, and freedom man’s main, psychic
thread dating back to his nomadic days when he was tall, lithe and
muscular. If I can’t find the freedom to write in England it is
hopeless. Indeed,
the alignment may have enshrined continued liberty and equality for
the blacks. It may have been about the black diaspora. I’m white
and I still felt the same. And
I contemplate now whether or not I felt I was being shamed, when I
clocked on to it first, but I don’t think I was. It was mechanistic
in the
divine
order
of things
rather than indicating that one should feel ashamed. It represented
Order in the great, star-crossed clock of the world. When the stars
come into alignment it should be peace on earth. It should affect
everyone. And to be fair it coincided with the great triumph of the
human spirit that was the first, black President of America.
Morrissey
had a song in his solo career about how he couldn’t respect America
until it had provided a President that was gay, black or female –
and his wish was granted. Unto some, it really was the case that
America was a right-wing nightmare, a white, protestant maelstrom, a
hegemonic zone.
The election of Mr. Obama was a dream come true that had been on the
cards for generations – and as soon as he came in, it was all about
his policies, nothing else. He was in short to be judged fairly,
according to the same criteria as the rest. And what a charismatic
leader he was, his catchphrase being “yes we can.” I suppose the
alignment coincided because it was like resetting the clock.
*
Proposition
47
The
fell’s striated way by daytime dips in the middle like dad’s
baggy hammock from Afghanistan.
Explanation
The
hammock in question is rusty brown like the hue of the fell in autumn
and winter time. It dips in the middle. Infinity does this too – it
dips in the middle where prayers are said. Sometimes I look at the
fell, though, and just think “hammock.” This was particularly the
case before the alignment. I am reminded now that walking on the sun
there are no ups, downs, lefts or rights. Also that musical notation
only reads left to right and there may be something more holistic to
dream of. That sometimes in Nature I see invisible sheet music stream
from right to left. But these are scattershot-logical perceptions as
part of a brain-storm.
*
Proposition
48
Sticking
to the alignment might be as near to a Unified Field Theory as an
amateur like myself can get.
Explanation
It
may seem like a narrow focus but only through the system is the
system conquered. To be truthful, though, I know all too little
little about how far Einstein got towards his lifetime goal of the
Unified Field Theory. Still, there was a time when I recalibrated my
own goal for that same end. It’s a long story that I might cut
short. In
short, a
desire
to contribute to the Unified Field Theory was engendered by life
events not education. To
start with, my
father, as
it
now
transpires,
might’ve been sponsored by some philosophers to provide the real
human witness from The
Lords And The New Creatures
by
Jim Morrison. At seven I am said to have helped invent the net: when
the idea of the net needed storing in writing in the attic at the
foot of the fell in order to give it a chance to grow all round the
world, it was me that wrote it. At eight I made not one but two very
strange Naturalistic Observations as witness. At eleven I was marked
by an experiment into the maths of the new colour. At fifteen I
attained the face of stars which might’ve been scripted in the
Bible. At eighteen, in 2000, I forewarned of September 11th
and also wrote the highest-marked English Literature A-level exam
essay in the nation at 100%. In
2000 I also prophesied the hunt for the God Particle from
looking at dust in a late ray of light angling in like I were
Democritus himself and
yet
said
the alignment, to celebrate a rhythm change in the White House, could
be in India as opposed to my own back garden! The
idea I had for a book was called The
Scientific Papers and
classed as “a series of findings into itself, into the concept of
art and science as a single discussion of perception.” The Towers
fell in my Gap Year 2001. Some friends and I started to record an
album on binaural earphones which I lately gather were even mine own
idea to invent. At some point I attended Warwick University
and
found my tutor had just brought out The
Scientific Papers.
It was classed as “a series of
findings into itself, into the concept of art and science writing as
a single discussion of perception.” He
had the extra word “writing.” So I
had to recalibrate my goal and thought about The Unified Field Theory
as in Einstein’s unobtained ambition and also defaced bank notes
which would be more Rage Against The Machine. After some interesting
work on Instant Travel, also on Lucy in the Soul W/ Demons, I left
Warwick with no degree, finished off the album we recorded on
earphones, saying I would “plug my senses in the mains,” attended
another University in Lancaster, and
then we had the alignment. The
alignment was itself an item in a numinous chain that continued after
the alignment.
I
think
in Order I hosted
the
alignment, then
got
my
desired
First despite mental illness in
the end,
doing
the defaced bank note thing, then
spotted
my name tattooed on Piper
At
The Gates of Dawn,
built the Tower as an instrument of philosophy, worked at a numinous,
purple-bleeding screen in an experiment into post-humanism, conducted
an experiment into a tape with a pause where cut and resealed in the
reel and discovered the sheet where pictures seemingly depicting my
own song lyric grew. Even
after the sheet things continued for I
also falsified the Nirvana barcode and attained visual radio
broadcasting dreams. Then
it was time to bring out books. I brought many out but didn’t yet
win with them. And now here I am, supposed to be focussing only on
the alignment!
*
Proposition
49
It
is not certain whether or not the alignment warps and bends the
fabric of spacetime.
Explanation
I
might be wrong about this, because memory is unreliable, but I
remember saying to Tommo from the band I shouldn’t have a problem
getting a job now that I’ve got my First Class Honours degree; and
I remember that being at the Plough alignment; and I didn’t get my
First until 2009; but the alignment in history happened with the
democratic election of Mr. Obama in 2008. As I say I may have
misremembered something
there
or else may be sitting on evidence that the closer you get to the
alignment, the more time breaks down. It may have been the case that
my First was already a dead certainty by 2008 when the band came up.
Or it may be that I mentioned to Tommo that I wouldn’t have trouble
getting a job at a different, later occasion,
after 2009.
Still, I have no way of knowing if the gravity of the alignment warps
and bends the fabric of spacetime.
*
Proposition
50
The
encrypted node in my seven year old book is that if the Gravity
between the earth and the moon is instant and therefore enough
to break
light speed, a clock is still only as fast as a cheetah – but this
is wrong.
Explanation
Indeed,
it is wrong because Gravity has no motion therefore cannot be said to
travel faster than the speed of light. Gravity, according to
Einstein, simply warps and bends the fabric of spacetime. Only things
with no mass can travel at light speed. These days you only need to
watch a Youtube video on the topic to pick up this amount of
information.
*
Proposition
51
In
poetry they say there is nothing so dead as an important thing; and
the alignment is important; but in philosophy it may be the case that
it can be treated.
Explanation
Indeed,
philosophy treats a subject, or even object, and the alignment comes
into focus now as that. It seems that Man is winning with the great
cause when it comes to the alignment. It seems the great song of Man
is being sung. It seems a great triumph of the human spirit. In
poetry something as Symbolic would be dead. Poetry finds itself in
nuances, contingencies and inklings not important things. It is a
guess but I would say philosophy is the correct endorsement for the
alignment. So
it seemed when the band fell north – we all got philosophising in
the camper van, and God was the topic. I
remember everyone apart from me having some security over their own
opinions, whereas I tended to the third party of agnosticism. The
alignment is big, in literal scale and socio-political significance,
and the questions it makes us ask are big questions too: question of
whether God exists or not; questions as to the intelligent
design of the universe; questions about chance and fate; about
random-ness or determinism. I
was at the time a practising poet and left the alignment more or less
alone in my work, unless it was a prose paragraph, and was wise to do
so too. It’s just too big to fit into a poem. If my life were a
game of Tetris, the pieces would all be too big for the screen and
the alignment especially so. It is public and political but only from
a private residence and everywhere else too at the same time. The
Plough also aligned with the oldest fell in London, in Paris, in Rome
– and still only from our home.
*
Proposition
52
The
tail end of the encrypted node, that a clock is only as fast as a
cheetah, still feels right in an unfalsifiable sense.
Explanation
Science
and art have different sensibilities when it comes to truth. In
science truth is to be falsified, but through falsifiability nothing
is 100%, only 99%
at best, only the
best theory at the time. In poetry there is truth-to-itself through
which anything can be 100% if well-made enough. Poetic truth is like
the truth of the individual, constituted of its own inner nature. A
poem could say “Barnes has scored a chicken” and get away with it
being 100% true
but
in science it would never be 100%. That a clock is only as fast as a
cheetah feels right in the unfalsifiable sense to me. You could even
try and encrypt it in musical truth with no words on a drum kit!
*
Proposition
53
Providing
what we provide here is no different from a worker in a tea field in
Malaysia.
Explanation
We
tend to the house and garden. We don’t get paid, we pay the bills
as per every other household. I myself can count doing the washing up
as one of my daily tasks. Others that drive have to do the shopping.
My
brother and I are
on Benefits, and
my mum on a State pension,
so
we
are not very wealthy though my mother owns the house out-right and it
is quite a valuable property. Three times mum had it valued at over
£800, 000 recently. We don’t expect to be paid for looking after
it. We provide a Function. And it strikes me while looking at a photo
of a tea-field in Malaysia that a worker there doesn’t expect to be
a rich and famous rock star, just quietly gets on with his work. Then
it strikes me that it is the same here, that we are on a level, that
there is kinship between us here and that worker in that Malaysian
tea field.
*
Proposition
54
The
value of this house should include the Bigger Picture.
Explanation
My
father said this, not I, and it’s funny that he did because he was
taught by
Karl
Popper
at the LSE, who didn’t believe in any “Bigger Picture” towards
which an argument tends. Popper’s epistemological methodology was
P1 to TT to EE to P2, meaning Problem One to Tentative Theory to
Error Elimination to Problem Two, and he was diametrically opposed to
logical positivism for whom even the circular argument trends
forwards. Popper saw no Bigger Picture towards which things trend. My
father cited his influence and yet believed “the value of our house
should include the Bigger Picture.” An estate agent will not factor
the alignment into the valuation of the house, simply treat it like
other houses. My father thought living here his children should be
aristocrats.
*
Proposition
55
To
focus on one subject or object is therapeutic.
Explanation
There
is something purgatorial going on. I can talk to you about, say, the
maths of the new colour, or the falsification of the Nirvana barcode,
or many other things, but to focus on just the alignment promises a
document that is neatly sealed, a tidy piece of scholarship. It
trains the mind to focus on one thing. There have been distractions,
but the idea is now to get the job done. This is not a chore, but is
slow progress; and something therapeutic is going on with regards to
the repetition of the theme.
*
Proposition
56
Order
is happiness.
Explanation
Again
it was my father that said this… and does it follow that Dionysus,
the Greek God of Chaos, equates to sadness? No it does not, but it
doesn’t mean there is no truth in what my father said. He had a
file for almost everything in life. He got up with the sun even in
his illness. Maybe
it follows more rationally that mess equates to Pain. For sadness may
be the musical key of intelligence. And yes I think disorder leads to
pain. This may have been prevalent in my narrative, always looking to
tie things up neatly, always subject to a Craving for Order that is a
natural part of anyone. I would say that Order is happiness could be
the most prevailing theme of all of this writing about the alignment,
and it is there in my word choice as well as evident in my subject
matter, namely the alignment itself.
*
Proposition
57
After
all that, words are insufficient for dealing with the alignment.
Explanation
The
natural beauty of the Lakes in general seems impervious to effusive
verbiage, fanciful magniloquence, fastidious loquacity, to words in
general. The alignment in particular is jaw-dropping and
heart-stopping, utterly awesome, sublime, preternatural, and thus
does not fit into words. If
I were in a National Park in Chile, though, I would be inspired by
the surroundings and try to incorporate that in my poetry. So I don’t
see anything wrong with trying to write about the alignment of the
Plough and oldest fell in the Lake District. It’s
description that fails, description that is not enough. It is the
role of the writer to obviate not titivate.
*
Proposition
58
It
must’ve been the case that on the first night of the alignment,
other people elsewhere also saw the Plough.
Explanation
And
their seeing the Plough might’ve been in relation to something else
again, like a chimney or a different hillside, a spikier peak
perhaps. This does not invalidate the alignment if it is true. The
argument that is growing is that the alignment proves there is Order
in the universe, that the universe is elegant, as if the product of
intelligent design. If
there are other places where alignment-like things happen, I would
not be surprised. What
one starts to wonder is whether or not they knew about the alignment
in the Ancient World, when things like Stone Henge and also the
Pyramids were being built.
*
Proposition
59
Even
the fell is mutable on a long enough timeline.
Explanation
Everything
is, even the fell. Even though it is the oldest fell, and was subject
to glaciation before the newer, punk upstart peaks came about, it
will not last forever, so even the alignment is not eternally
present. Eternity is Now and Now and Now, and before the alignment
Eternity can be observed, but the fact of the alignment, the
logistics of it working, will not last forever.
*
Proposition
60
Here,
the night sky only seems to turn on axis unobserved.
Explanation
Indeed,
the earth spins in circles round the sun, but when it came to the
alignment it was fixed in place for as long as you observed it.
Taking an interest in the sky again I later
found
that the constellations in general only seemed to have moved when I
was no longer observing the sky. I would have to come back inside to
the kitchen, wait a while and go back out if I wanted to see them
change. I don’t know why this is but the alignment also
was
held in place with fixity for several successive nights, and every
time you went out into the garden at night time it would be there.
*
Proposition
61
The
alignment must’ve been like taking 100 LSD tabs for breakfast to
those that had never been taken into a visionary world before.
Explanation
The
rest of my band, they had never seen things before, the face of stars
for example, or made weird Naturalistic Observations in boyhood, and
must’ve therefore perceived the alignment as like taking 100 LSD
tabs for breakfast. Indeed, I heard someone say something like that
when we later went to the Secret Garden Party (a festival). It was
also like “attaining television,” but so was the face of stars
before it, if I am not wrong. The face of stars is not a regular
constellation, only a visionary access, but the alignment involves a
known constellation and it seems more ancient than the face. It is no
less impressive than the face, and in fact maybe even more so. It
reveals that the universe works, that the world has secrets, that
everything is in Order. Rather than the metaphor of LSD I would
prefer to consider 100 ecstasy pills but it would be a fatal dose.
Ecstasy
is more about heart-magnetism than being psychoactive. Yes, I think
the alignment could be unpacked in terms of Ecstasy rather than LSD.
Sometimes
ecstasy can make you feel like your mouth is full of water, cold,
heavenly, crystal water and when you speak it all spills on the
floor.
*
Proposition
62
The
alignment was dead as Valley
End Services.
Explanation
That’s
the garage at the bottom of the valley, where we would sneak off to
in order to buy cigarettes when we were young. It’s dead and has
been dead for years – and yes the alignment looked as dead as that
dead garage too. Here
I’d like to reiterate that there’s nothing so dead as an
important thing. One of the two local pubs (the John Bull) where they
had Jimi Hendrix on the jukebox and a good pool table was swift to
follow the dead garage. Then the local village shop and Post Office
closed down. The only hope we have left is the new cafe down the
beach.
*
Proposition
63
With
love in it the universe is at least a luminous corpse.
Explanation
There’s
a discussion in Nabokov’s novel Pnin
about whether or not the universe is a corpse and if so whether or
not it is at least a luminous corpse. One would hope that with love
in it it is at least a luminous corpse; that the universe is not in a
hearse; that the universe-hearse is not in your soul-hole whole.
*
Proposition
64
The
alignment could still be a manifestation of God’s perfection.
Explanation
Yes,
and it could be a manifestation of God’s perfection of which there
are others. But what others? Maybe even a bar of light on the table
is one. And the alignment seems to be the most archetypal, sublime
and symbolic of all manifestations of God’s perfection because of
the sheer scale. It is not just the scale but the
fitting-into-place-ness. I was going to say it is absurd but that is
not the right word, nor uncanny. The sheer logic of it is sublime.
The logic of the alignment is beyond Man’s capacity to dream up and
indicates a God and intelligent design. It indicates, at least that
there is more to the universe than we understand; and when I say
intelligent design that is not just in terms of Creation but in terms
of God having a plan for Man. All of this is a major rebuttal of the
pragmatic atheism of my youth.
*
Proposition
65
One
might be forgiven for supposing the alignment is Man’s best chance
to prove God.
Explanation
The
burden of proof is on the believer in debates about God’s
existence; and to be the one who lives here one must surely turn to
God. The alignment might be Man’s best chance to prove God and if
it can’t be done it may be a problem with the desire of the author.
There are other proofs of God I came across. One was the instance
where you put all your postcards of visual art, like Van Gogh and
Turner, on the wall, and accidentally leave a space, then some time
later are sitting talking about God with your gf and notice that only
the blanks space has been visited by sunlight through the window.
Then it seems like God is making a work of art to juxtapose with the
post-cards, and it looks like a pulsing, subaquatic wind-chime on the
wall. A Jehovah’s Witness however would say God can not be
observed, whereas someone like Spinoza is a pantheist that as stated
earlier believes there is no substance that is separate from God.
Dedalus from Ulysses
by James Joyce says ultimately we all have the same definition of God
and the alignment could easily be seen to confirm this utterance from
Ulysses.
*
Proposition
66
It
is not glaciation that shaped The Plough.
Explanation
What
I mean is because it all fits together one might consider that the
Plough and Black Combe were subject to the same force, were created
by the same thing. This could be God redefined. It could also be
something to do with Gravity. When you think about how it all fits,
you have to factor in human life into the equation too, not just in
terms of the socio-political sphere but at all levels and stations.
It is not glaciation that shaped The Plough but glaciation did shape
the fell, and what shaped the Plough is to do with physics, is
astral, but they both seem subject to the same sense of Order, an
overall Order that is perplexing and which one might be forgiven for
calling God.
*
Proposition
67
The
other stars in the sky went un-noticed at the alignment.
Explanation
It
was different at the face of stars, where the universe was enlumed,
drenched with electric diamonds, wet, dripping grape-bunches of
stars. When it came to the alignment, all focus was on the Plough. To
call it monocentric, though, would not be right. I here refer you
back to Proposition 62 – for the Plough truly looked dead at the
alignment, and the surrounding sky, and the fell, and the universe at
large. With the face of stars it was different: the cosmos was alive,
fizzing with energy, and it was like peering directly into the erotic
core of all things.
*
Proposition
68
Truly,
what was needed was some pollen from the Muslim World to smoke.
Explanation
I
say this knowing pollen is against the law, for I think it should be
legalised. By the time of the alignment we had given up smoking
pollen up here. My dad once doled it out as a reward for working
outdoors, like setting up a Republic where pollen was a currency. We
had many a fine and poetic conversation on pollen, my
brothers and I, many
an outpouring, an unspooling, including when I forewarned of
September 11th
in 2000. But as I say by the time the band came up to see the
alignment, there was no more pollen allowed in the house. This was
because of my own mental health issues which were being blamed on
drug-taking. I suppose the band were anticipating there being some
pollen when they arrived and were upset to find none, finding
instead a walk up the nation’s tallest mountain and things tending
to health.
*
Proposition
69
She
has a way with wheels.
Explanation
My
father said this to me, knowing that when he died, I would get handed
a book I wrote at seven that had to be stored in the attic all his
life. It was the one where the idea of the net was kept in “Long
Storage” to give it a chance to grow all the way round the world
and keep it free. It seems they couldn’t invent the net without
going through our house, because it is where the Plough alignment is
viable, but this was 1989. Now we have had
the
alignment itself
and
that represents the same thing in terms of “her way with wheels.”
It’s all about timing, even though t
= 0.
*
Proposition
70
The
alignment confirms that there is no time.
Explanation
It
may coincide with the socio-political sphere with exactitude but that
proves there is no time. The way the alignment didn’t happen until
the rhythm change in the White House, and then when it did happen
hung around with persistence for as long as I could observe it,
proves that as Einstein said Time is an illusion albeit a very
persistent one. If there were such a thing as Time, maybe the
alignment would happen with a more regular rate and frequency. But
truly, with the alignment, we are dealing with the timeless realm,
and that includes Eternity being Now and Now and Now. So in the
alignment we see the timeless sphere bulging into the temporal
sphere, like a reminder of Infinity. One’s daily activities, or
nightly activities, like watching TV or having a cup of tea, suddenly
go on with the backdrop of Elephant Night. The alignment is a portal
to the Infinite.
*
Proposition
71
The
problem with writing about the alignment is that one would always
expect it to be more than mere words and to be better words too.
Explanation
You
might expect, if someone was “doing the alignment,” that the
document would be the Third Testament, The Unified Field Theory, the
British Constitution, or the cure for cancer. To make a paper about
it that just “seems intelligent” may not be enough, may be but an
echo of a great thing, clinging on to it after it has gone.
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