Aesthetic
Exercises to Accept the Body and Mirror the Body of the World
Presuppositions
The
body is the basis and end of all, our origin and limit. While many in the past and some still in the
present have seen spirits existent without bodies and often named these spirits
gods¾or when
viewed as a collective unity, God¾our
understanding is that such spirits are the various expressions of the human
soul, housed in and dependent on the body.
God, then, is now the limen of collective possibility of the human soul¾actualized
possibility and potential possibility:
the actualized being visible and known, the potential being invisible
and unknown.
The
Aesthetic Exercises are designed to help the artist unite body and soul, to
extend nature to the limits of the human soul while still maintaining the
soul’s roots in the body; for once the roots are severed, we still may have
art, but it is art with roots in the air, and this is not the art of which we
speak or that which we strive for.
Thus
we must begin our Exercises with the body, for this is where we begin and end,
and what we live within between our origins and ends. As our aim is to accept the body and not deny
it or a portion of it, the acts in this section are diverse in nature, for the
body itself is diverse according to temperament, mood and stage of life. We recommend that the Exercises are begun
before 30, for physical energy naturally diminishes with age, and the Exercises
are structured with the most physically demanding acts¾those requiring the least discernment¾in the first two
sections.
Notes
We
can view the human body as nature, for most of us now live in the city, and the
human body is the only nature remaining to us.
We
have many instances of maintaining the soul’s roots in the air in our history,
an option that is attractive for it neglects the truth and responsibility of
the mortality and diversity of the body.
All ideas and deeds that attempt to overcome rather than accept death
have their roots in the air. This is
true whether this overcoming is through spiritual or physical means: spiritual overcomings posit a world other
than this world, existing outside of time, in another time or space; physical
overcomings attempt, typically with the aid of science and technology, to
extend individual life eternally. Both
of these have in common their rejection of the limits of physical life, a
rejection that diminishes the life we are given; this rejection is rooted in
fear.
The
relationship between the structure of the acts of the body and individual
temperament and mood is complex and will be explored further in later sections.
Meditations
The
meditations should be reflected on before, during and after the acts of the
body, according to one’s inclinations and ability. For some, such meditations will occur
naturally, even as one is giving oneself over to the body; for others, the
physical activities will be too distracting, particularly in the first and
second years, to adequately meditate on what is occurring. Still for others, they will need to wait
until the acts of the mind or even later, when they have gained sufficient
experience to be able to reflect on what took place years before in their
lives.
When
you look at the thoughts and actions that have arisen from instances of the
body, we find two common themes.
Firstly, we find an attempt to reduce the diversity of the body to a
portion of that diversity. These
descriptions make it sound as if only the head exists, or only the heart or the
skin. They are often systems¾not systems
emulating the body¾diverse
and contradictory¾but ones
born of the mind’s desire for control¾similar
and consistent. Secondly, we find an
attempt to deny mortality and thus construct a world somehow apart from this
world (mental, spiritual, physical, emotional); think of the relationship
between the attempt to deny mortality and the degree to which various forms of
death enter into these attempts. think
from there into the inevitability of death and how suppressing it in its one
real form¾the end
of our existence¾simply
channels it into new more complex forms.
Meditate
on our human need for the body and how our migration from living in nature to
living in technology has affected this need.
Meditate
on the body’s various and opposing states (e.g. the desire for touch, the
desire for cloister). List all the
primary states and mark which ones are opposed¾that is, which ones cannot be satisfied at the same
time. Don’t restrict yourself solely to
your own inclinations, but the inclinations of all bodies.
Meditate
on the democracy and aristocracy of flesh.
How are these two in tension? How
do they cooperate? How are they similar? Apply these questions to the body
individually and the body collectively¾all bodies
in relation to one another.
Meditate
on the body’s cruelty and compassion.
How are these tendencies related to the democracy and aristocracy of
flesh? In your meditation, attempt to
stay away from the cruelty and compassion of the will, mind and soul and focus
solely on the cruelty and compassion of the body itself.
Meditate
on the body’s lawlessness, its amorality.
Reflect on the relationship between this characteristic of the body and
language.
Meditate
on the body’s desire to bring things unto itself¾to gather the world into its orbit¾and the body’s
desire to sacrifice itself to other things, to the world. Are these desires truly desires of the body?
Meditate
on the body in relation to light and darkness.
How is the body light? How is it
dark?
Meditate
on the body’s relation to deprivation and excess. How are these relations linked to survival¾of the individual?
of the collective?
Meditate
on the geometry of the body¾both on
the physicality of its form and on the shapes inherent in the movement of the
body from its origin to its end.
Meditate
on three versions of human origins: that
flesh came from spirit, the spirit came from flesh, that they arose together as
different manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon or from no
foundation. What is the nature of and
what might be the motivations for each version?
Do the versions differ in terms of their implications for human life in
the past? present? future?
Meditate
on the body’s role as impersonal ritual.
For our bodies move through life weaving shapes into the future and the
patterns of their resting and thrashing are rituals that have never known and
will not know us.
Rationale
The
Aesthetic Exercises begin with the body because art is the body stretched to
its furthest circumference; this stretched circumference is unseen, yet its
substance is the body and the body’s centre is its energy. The artist cannot create unless he or she is
rooted in the body.
We
begin with the body as it is, without the layers of will, mind, soul and judgement
on it. We begin by accepting the body on
its own terms.
We
experience the body on its own terms best by exploring the extreme states of
the body; such experience accentuates the body’s diverse modes. If the reader objects by saying that we also
know the body in non-extreme states¾states
of rest, calm, indolence¾and that
these states are part of the body’s diverse modes and are arguably far more
common than the extreme states, we will agree with you in terms of assessing
the body’s states from a mere quantitative perspective over time; but
quantitative measurement as a sole or even primary measure is the mode of
machines, not humans, and we feel no compulsion to be like machines,
particularly in these Exercises, which are committed to improving the realm of
art, and art, let it be known, is the opposite of the machine. Yet, even from a quantitative point of view,
our approach can be justified, for during all the Exercises¾even the ones that
are more physically strenuous and extreme¾the body still is in a more dormant state the majority
of the time. When we speak of exploring
the extreme states of the body, we mean that in this phase of the Exercises,
certain states should be entered which will not necessarily be experienced
again and, as extreme states are intense and in their intensity burn into the
memory more forcefully than the far more frequent and routine states our bodies
must normally be in, these states will rouse in many feelings disproportionate
to their quantitative worth.
The
reader may object that it is not unknown for artists to be sickly, thus making
it difficult or impossible for some to adequately perform or complete the
acts. First of all, let it be said on a
general note that these Exercises are meant to be difficult¾not as an act of caprice
or cruelty, but as a test. For how can
the artist stretch herself to the circumference of the human soul unless she
survive fire? Some do not; such is the
nature of the test. More than a test
though, the difficulty of these Exercises arises from the body itself: the body is difficult and exercises that are
not difficult cannot be exercises of the body, but are rather mind exercises in
what the mind wants the body to be.
Secondly, let it be said that impossibility is a difficult word. What is one person’s impossibility is another
person’s routine; what was once considered impossible becomes possible. Furthermore, the human soul is oriented
toward the impossible, always craving what does not exist.
Nevertheless,
while awe is a property commensurate with knowledge, magic is not, thus,
whatever might exist in the future, we accept certain obvious limits that exist
in the present. Thus, if the artist
truly has limitations which preclude the enactment of some of these Exercises,
and these limitations are not those that can be overcome through due
application, then she should use other means¾inevitably vicarious¾to explore the states aroused by these acts; these
means may be external, by participating in another’s acts through word and/or
observation, or they may be internal, by participating in the acts through
imagination.
We
should note here that the limitations of which we speak may not simply and
obviously be physical. Limitations of
will, intellect, soul and judgement exist and are, in a very real sense, also
physical, although extended from the obviously physical. We acknowledge that certain limitations may
preclude the enactment of certain acts within these Exercises, but that a
fundamental weakness in the later phases will likely inhibit the initiate from
satisfactorily completing the Exercises.
Such a one may produce art, but not the art which mirrors well and fully
the collective human soul. Nevertheless,
we often do not know until we try, and much is beyond our control.
Method
The
Acts of the Body are divided into three years and move from excess to
restraint, beginning with positive excess, changing to negative excess and
ending with restraint. In each of these
years, the acts are designed to expose the initiate to the major manifestations
of the body and so provide a suitable physical foundation for further
exploration.
Acts: First Year
There
are those who argue against ways of life even though they have had no direct
experience of those ways of life. While
the artist is subject to finitude and so can only actualize very limited
possibilities, there are limited modes of life that these infinite
possibilities reside in, and the artist is called to know these modes, even
though temperamentally she will inevitably be inclined more to one than the
others.
The
first year of the Exercises are devoted to positive excess of the body. In the age during which these Exercises are
being written, positive excess of the body is, in most circles, not only
socially acceptable, but encouraged.
This is what William Blake adumbrated in his memorable fancy. During other ages, of course, different
situations may be favored. There are
peculiar challenges both to having an age favor or disfavor a particular
mode: in the former case, it is easy to
assume the mode as one’s own, even though it is not naturally one’s own; in the
latter case, it is difficult to even place oneself in that mode for an evening,
let alone for a year, unless one takes special precautions, due to the social
prohibitions that have grown and become like steel chains around a society,
inhibiting movement in particular areas.
By
excess, we mean as we have stated: that
the body is stretched to its limits and indulges itself, in this case in the
positive mode. By positive, we mean that
the body seeks pleasure rather than pain.
In
this first year, the initiate is required to expose herself to the primary
manifestations of the mode of physical excess; these primary manifestations are
comforts, food, sex, image. Note that
while the acts are described specifically, the initiate can actualize specific
acts according to opportunity. Note,
however, that opportunity must be facilitated; this is a year during which the
initiate should live with the priority of facilitating opportunity for positive
excess. This is easily done through the
choice of friends, the spaces one frequents, the manner of language and
fashion. All these should be carefully
chosen and mastered. While certain acts,
then, can be occasional, the general demeanor and lifestyle during this first
year should be wholly devoted to the mode of positive excess of the body.
Comforts
When
we speak of comforts, we exclude the subsequent categories of food and sex,
which we will deal with at length later in our discussion, and instead focus on
the environment in which the initiate lives.
The
initiate should attempt to surround herself with as many creaturely comforts as
possible. This primarily includes a home
that many others would envy, as well as inside and outside furnishings that would
likewise cause envy.
Such
recommended action should not be interpreted as a promotion of envy, but rather
a recognition that envy is one of the primary powers of the common person and
is inspired easily by such things as a nice house and furnishings. The primary powers of the common person
are: envy, sex, fantasy, and
photographs. Envy and sex are the powers
of the present, related to possession of what another has. Fantasy is the power of the future,
representing reality as one hopes it would be.
Photographs are the power of the past, representing reality as one hopes
it might have been.
The
reader should understand that by sex as a primary power, we mean not simply the
act of sex, but the apparatus surrounding sex:
the possibility of sex. This apparatus
requires far more energy than the sex act itself, and one wonders whether the
human race may evolve to the point whereby, due to technological factors, the
sex act is no longer necessary, and all sexual pleasures are obtained from the
possibility of the sex act, which itself is never consummated; this eternal
not-consummating actually increasing pleasure, for we all know the inevitable
decline of pleasure upon having (temporarily) obtained our object. But we digress.
This
first year explores the primary powers of the common person, for to venture
into the uncommon, one must first know the common, and the common is the base
for every great thing. While most humans
never evolve beyond the common, it is the artist’s calling to evolve beyond;
yet this evolution must be a true evolution, and not one that pretends to be
evolved but simply mimics those who have suffered at the hungry hands of
life. The artist must live each aspect
of evolution and by living and suffering and overcoming know the primary domains
of life and death and in this successive knowing actually evolve¾starting from the
common, and moving beyond.
So
the initiate begins with common envy¾again,
not because these Exercises promote envy as a worthy goal, but because the
artist must be acquainted with envy¾in this
case, with the envy of others toward her.
This envy will inevitably be inspired by surrounding herself with
desirable creaturely comforts; this should be objectively recognized as
comforts desirable in the time and space the artist herself is within, or else
envy will not be effectively evoked.
The
initiate should limit her extravagance only by the bounds of the possible, not
by any imposition, whether from within her soul, if these limits be placed
there by temperament or upbringing, or from without, if these limits be
pressured upon the initiate by an individual or individuals specifically
articulating them or by social mores at large.
These
comforts should include servants to effect, if possible, a complete removal of
labour. These servants should
include: 1) cooks, to ensure food is
prepared according to the standards outlined below and to ensure the proper
maintenance and growth of the kitchen; 2) waiters and waitresses, to look after
the serving of the food whenever desired; 3) busboys and girls, to look after
the clearing of the tables, the cleaning of the dishes and their being put
away; 4) maids and manservants, to ensure the ongoing cleanliness and tidiness
of the house and furnishings, including the external patios, and to take care
of the initiate’s person, including the making and unmaking of the bed, the
dressing and undressing of the person, the bathing and grooming of the body,
and the overall tending to whatever needs the initiate might have; 5)
gardeners, to ensure the external grounds and internal flora are kept alive and
grow according to their tendencies and all non-sentient life conform to healthy
standards; 6) pet-keepers, to care for the animals, including their bodily
needs, from walking to cleaning, their emotional needs, from play and care, and
their maturation needs: their training
and discipline.
In
short, the initiate should not have to do any manual labour during this year;
all bodily energies should be devoted to the pursuit of pleasure.
The
initiate may wonder what overall context is best for establishing this habitat;
particularly, we refer to whether an urban or rural context is best for the
pursuit of pleasure and, if a choice can be made between these two
alternatives, whether further specificity can be made¾for many different urban and rural environments
exist. If rural, for example, should it
be town, village, farm, in the New World or Old, east or west, south or north,
foreign or familiar, tropical or temperate?
Many of the same issues apply to the urban environment, but with the
additional question of the size and orientation of the city: degree and mix of industry, culture,
religion, corruption, entertainment, safety, business.
We
strongly recommend that the place of positive excess be in the urban
environment, and one that is very large and has a thriving cultural
industry. If it is very large,
inevitably it will have not only a thriving cultural industry, but also
industry, religion, corruption, and so on.
Such cities are not many, but they are easily accessible and exist on
every inhabited continent, with the exception of Australia, which, because of
its relative isolation, has some interesting cities, but no truly large and
cosmopolitan ones; examples of possibilities include New York, Paris, Buenos
Aires, Cairo, London, Mexico City, Tokyo.
The question remains as to whether the initiate should take up residence
in a foreign or familiar place, but we think this decision unimportant at this
stage of her development and it should be subject to more pressing
considerations such as are discussed below.
The
initiate may wonder how such a lifestyle can be funded. Admittedly, this issue presents certain
distinctive challenges. To reiterate an
earlier point, however, the road to becoming the kind of artist of which we
speak cannot be easy, even when we are discussing pleasure. For the person who thinks that pleasure is
only easy is a fool and understands nothing; as much pain exists in the pursuit
of pleasure as pleasure in a life of suffering and only the wise, if any still
exist, are able to see both. Admittedly,
the nature of the pains and pleasures in each opposed path is qualitatively
different. But no path, whether that of
the roue or the ascetic, is one-sided; though it may appear so to those who
judge only by appearances, the actual life lived by the individual is complex,
varied, contradictory and mixed. How
much more the life of the artist, who knows experientially both the way of the
debauchee and the way of the penitent.
How to create such a lifestyle in a year¾what many cannot accomplish in a lifetime though it be
their deepest and recurring dream¾is part
of the challenge of this early portion of the Exercises.
Having
articulated this challenge and this warning, we nevertheless suggest that the
initiate take creative measures to accomplish her goal in this early
stage. Full of youthful vigor and
audacity, the initiate may need to live off the fruits of one who has spent a
lifetime accumulating the envy of others.
This has the obvious merit of saving huge reservoirs of energy, as well
as potentially substantially reducing the amount of time required to establish
a proper enviable home and devote oneself to the sole task of this first
year: excessive positive pleasure.
Finally,
we speak of what was once called clothing, but is now called fashion: the raiment and statement of the body. The initiate should take every effort to
surround herself with beautiful articles, from undergarments, both comfortable
and salacious, to layers above, suggestive, discrete, bold, revealing,
outrageous, to paraphernalia for every occasion, whether of nature
(temperature, precipitation, heat) or location (ball, beach, barnyard, boudoir,
bar, boardroom, bordello) or social (aristocratic, suburban, old or new wealth,
impoverished, homeless). Shoes, hats and
undergarments should be the most numerous, for they will often be revealed and
remembered, long after the initiate has progressed through other modes toward her
consummation.
Food
The
pleasures of the palate are intensely variegated, and historically one of the
greatest, most accessible delights.
These delights increase in proportion with the size and cosmopolitan
nature of one’s habitat¾a
further argument in favor of spending the first year of these Exercises, so
fully devoted to positive excess, in one of the earth’s chief metropolises¾and have increased
with time, owing to human ingenuity in the creation of new species and in the
preparation and serving of these species, and to the free, rapid and
hygienically safe movement of food and drink between the furthest reaches of
the globe.
In
the pleasures of the palate we include both food and drink, in all their
variety. Furthermore, we include in this
category other substances, ingested not for any dietary purpose, but solely for
pleasure, substances that have contact with the mouth but are not ingested into
the stomach although they may be inhaled, and substances that are injected into
the body through means other than the mouth, whether this be nose or ears or
eyes or the epidermis in any of its stretches:
in the first category of other substances, we include psilocybes,
lysergic acid, MDMA, methamphetamine, Phencyclidine, Dimethoxyphenethylamine,
Gamma hydroxybutyrate, piperazine monhydrochloride, ephedra, qat, GHB,
Destromethorphan Hydrobromide, Isobutyl nitrate or other ingestible
hallucinogenics; in the second category, we include cigarettes, cigars,
cannabis sativa, Nitrous Oxide; in the final category, we include
diacetylmorphine, Erythroxylon coca, methamphetamine, ketamine hydrochloride,
and any alkyl nitrite. One of the
strengths of the human species is its ability to discover or create new
hallucinogenics, the scientific revolution aiding our ability to do so. Thus, new experiences and variations of
experience are continually being introduced, and this first year is devoted to
including these experiences in one’s life.
Let
us discuss each of the chief food pleasures in turn, beginning with food
itself. As discussed in the preceding
section, the initiate should have no responsibility for food shopping,
preparation, serving or cleaning. At
most, the initiate can, if she desires, tell the appropriate person what menu
she desires for a particular meal. Other
than that, her only duties are saying what she wants, and enjoying the
resultant smells, textures, sounds, smells and tastes.
Drink
is the second major category of food, and wine and spirits are the zenith of
drink. The initiate should pursue the
finest of the zenith of drink liberally.
Other
substances, enumerated at some length above, are the third major category of
food, and these also should be explored.
The
challenges the initiate faces during this year are those that anyone faces when
living a life of positive excess, although inevitably these challenges differ
depending on one’s ability to tolerate and adapt to this particular
lifestyle. Indeed, each year is a
different major mode of human existence, with its particular pleasures,
exigencies and challenges. Some
inevitably think that pleasure is without challenges, but, as we have already
argued, these people are blind¾not with
the blindness of the prophet or the sagacious fool, but with the blindness of
the average idiot.
So
the challenges in the excess of food include addiction, psychosis,
unconsciousness and even death. The
initiate should beware and so simultaneously pursue these pleasures and take
care to survive the first year in such a way as to be able to vigorously
continue with the Exercises, keeping in mind at all times that the purpose of
the Exercises are not the completion of the Exercises themselves, but the
molding of an artist¾and not
even this, for the artist is irrelevant other than to produce a work of
art. This simultaneous pursuit of
pleasure and care to avoid death is a core challenge not only in this food
section, but in the following sections of sex and image.
Inevitably,
because of the peculiar nature of these difficulties, some will die. We can only reiterate that easy exercises are
not exercises worthy of the name.
Sex
By
sex, we mean self-touch, touch between two or more people, touch in both cases
where desire is aroused or where desire is desired to be aroused on the part of
at least one person, or we mean situations in which the possibility of sex exists
or the situation where the desire to have the possibility of sex exist exists.
As
history has progressed, the human has gradually surrounded himself with
apparatuses, to extend his body in time and space¾an extension both of power and substance. So the human at the time of this writing
moves most often surrounded by metal, thinks and acts and writes only with the
aid of machines; even his copulation is abetted by many apparatuses, not only
for the prevention of pregnancy and disease, but for the enhancement of
pleasure. So sex has evolved from its
simple copulative origins to a complex of signs and symbols, which may or may
not point or lead to the original act itself.
This apparatus includes language as a significant sexual act in
itself. It may in fact be the case that
sex is gradually being rearranged in terms of its composition, that whereas it
began as a copulative nucleus and extended to such a nucleus surrounding and
increasingly complex apparatuses, such as language, possibility, soul, image,
technique, will, media, mind, technology, variation, emotion, spirit, gender,
judgement, fashion, status, theme, power, and hope, it now is being transformed
by tectonic forces at the world’s foundations such that each apparatus is
itself becoming a centre around which all the other apparatuses can potentially
orbit, the copulative nucleus simply being one nucleus among many. But we digress.
The
point here that the initiate should keep in mind is that she should understand
both the original core of sex and¾as, if
not more, important¾the
apparatus surrounding it. By understand
we mean know and by know we mean experience and by experience we mean pursue.
Important
to keep in mind are the variegated manifestations of sex, for without both
variety and obscurity, sex loses much of its vigor. Thus during this year, the initiate should
plunge into the pullulative expression of flesh and plunge into flesh’s
darkness. In both are severe pleasures,
which many have argued are the severest of all and the root of all excess. This argument has merit, as we spring from
flesh and spawn it and are helplessly contained within it, this ministrant of
pain and excess, food being necessary to sustain it, habitation being necessary
to protect it, image having become necessary to project it, but flesh’s
spasmodic arching scream the centre and limen of the manifold and swarming
whole.
The
dual nature of sex¾a
revealing and a hiding¾is what
an obscure philosopher said also applied to technology, defining technology as
αληθεια. So sex also can be seen to be
αληθεια. Let the initiate keep this
duality in mind¾for it
is an essential duality of life and we will find it clothed in different forms
in many different spheres as we progress¾and, keeping this duality in mind, neither reveal too
much nor hide too much. Yet, even so,
let her do so in excess.
(Let,
in fact, the contemplation of this duality and the similarity between sex and
technology in this regard be added to the body meditations, for these are
worthy thoughts and ripe with potency.)
In
terms of variety, then, the initiate should explore as many forms in as many
ways as possible. Obviously, the world
offers up what is practically a limitless smorgasbord for sampling, and the
initiate, in her state of intentional excess, should explore this by focusing
on types. For example: at least one member of each major race; at
least one member of the two sexes, preferably including gender varieties within
each sex (e.g. male gender, female sex;
female gender, female sex; mixed gender, female sex; male gender, male sex;
etc.); selections from the spectrum of education (from uneducated to highly
educated); selections from the spectrum of intelligence; selections from the
spectrum of emotionality; selections from the spectrum of dependence,
independence, codependence, antidependence; selections from the spectrum of
addiction; selections from societal orientation (business, entertainment,
industry, labor, sport, academic, politics, communication, automotive, etc.);
selections from religious persuasion; talipeds; selections from sexual
orientation, despite the challenges involved in this; selections from age
range, paying attention to consent and curiosity rather than legality, not
avoiding the geriatric segment; selections from timidity and boldness, both in
the sexual arena as well as others; couth and uncouth; brutal and
compassionate; polygamous and not; diseased and healthy; rural and urban; of
the major hair colours, with due disregard to the reputation of redheads, a
reputation found consistently throughout historical erotic records; criminals
and abiding citizens; pompous and simple; paid and unpaid; corpulent and gaunt;
famous and obscure; war veterans; democratic, autocratic and dictatorial; the
carious; sagacious and foolish; beasts, if willing; priests and laypeople;
deans, chairs and provosts; carls; bricklayers.
Not
only should the initiate pursue experiences with the wide variety of humanity,
but these experiences should be themselves explored with variety and this
variety should be of two kinds: manner
and location.
Manner
of congress is inevitably more limited in its scope than the preceding¾the variety of
bodies and personalities and life situations¾and the following¾the location and physical surroundings of the congress,
subject as it is to the physicality of a body, or two together, or a
group. Nevertheless, all manners of
congress should be explored, with aids and without. One of the benefits the initiate has, living
as she does not in ancient times but in the present, with its developed
technology, is that the manners of congress have increased beyond the merely
biological available to members of early civilizations. Now, with images and music, techniques, words
and devices, where the imagination has been effectively copied and packaged,
its goodness made available for the benefit of many, the pursuer of sexual
pleasure has a much larger and more complex range, which has in fact been
extended from simple physicality by means of technology to a richer world,
providing us, as it were, with more and diverse limbs, further eyes. Not only this, but enabling us to live more
lives than otherwise we would be able to, inhabiting, as we can, other minds
and perspectives, gaining emotions not usually ours, even if these be but temporary. So the initiate should use every available
means and device to explore the pleasures of the body both with herself and
with others, while not, however, restricting herself exclusively to the use of
means and devices of extension; she should also be well acquainted with all the
standard positions available simply to bodies on their own.
In
addition to the variety of humanity and the stations in which they find
themselves in life, and in addition to the manner of joining, both natural and
technological, the initiate should heartily explore an extensive variety of
location. Naturally, such locations will
include the common home of intercourse¾the bed¾but the initiate
should take care to couple in as many beds as possible, of as many types: from soft to hard; narrow to wide; short to
long; made of many substances; with finery and not; clean and dirty; old and
new; expensive and cheap; secluded and public; watched and unwatched; posted,
not; with headboards, not; canopied, not; of every colour and fabric; lumpy and
smooth; with bugs assorted, homogeneous, absent; painted, plain; sofas. The beds the initiate explores should be in
as many bedrooms of as many sorts in as many homes of as many sorts as
possible. Yet beds, despite their well
earned reputation as the natural home of congress, can simply be seen as the
core habitation of copulation, with ripples extending infinitely out. The artist should thus pursue sexual activity
on all continents and in as many countries and landscapes as possible. This pursuit itself will greatly increase the
variety of beds, bedrooms and homes, as these vary substantially according to
custom and climate. For, despite the
cliché that no two rooms are alike, one can frolic in a thousand beds in one
country and yet they will all appear to be the same once one travels halfway
around the world into a strange and exotic realm.
The
initiate should couple not just in manifold beds in manifold ways in manifold
lands, but also in manifold places. The
world in its abundance has much to offer, both naturally and
technologically. As the initiate finds
herself in an overwhelmingly urban environment, the latter locations will
obviously be more accessible and she will have to make some effort to couple in
sandstorms; extreme heat and cold; deserts; barns; on, beside and under
animals; lighthouses; outhouses; campspots; trees; rills and swamps; fens and
plateaus; crags; where once there was a battle; motley rifts; jequirities;
surrounded by carpenter moths; the Carpathian Mountains; reefs; observed by
animals, threatening and timid; a place Pausanias has been; patulous
subterranes; grabens; under eclipses of all sorts; by bustics.
Despite
the joys and challenges of a natural setting, the urban environment also offers
diverse opportunities, often without the effort required in untamed nature.
We
suggest that the initiate minimally pursue positive excess in offices;
washrooms; parks; arenas; alleys; concerts; playgrounds; classrooms; closets,
broom or otherwise; elevators; tennis courts; benches; malls; change rooms,
sport or retail; swimming pools; saunas; coolers; cafes; Ikea; zoo exhibits;
churches, including pews, balconies, baptismal tanks, altars, confessional
booths; greenhouses; secret societies; movie theatres; go-kart tracks; sewers;
petting zoos; bicycle rental booths; cafeterias; filtration plants; factories;
abandoned buildings; condominium squash courts; subdivisions being built; opera
houses; illegal betting houses; synagogues, temples, mosques; places of ill
repute; public transit; hotel kitchens; telephone switching habitations;
supermarkets, in the baked good section; escalators; printing presses; fast
food restaurants, in the lineup; atmospheres of mistrust; retreats, convents
and monasteries; all venues judicial; cheap lingerie stores where no one speaks
the native language; barbershops; garages, residential, parking, above and
below ground, attended and not; Hyde Park; postal sorting stations; unnamed
recesses; animal shelters; NGOs; cemeteries and mausoleums; circus tents; artist
dens; bookstores and libraries; city halls; construction sites; nuclear plants;
conference rooms; piazzas; foyers; projection rooms; composts and dumps;
forbidden zones; stairways and wells; beer stores; government-funded ethnic
gatherings; deleterious garden sheds; asylums; recycling centres; hospitals and
convalescent homes; jejune colleges; union and legion halls; verandahs; diva
auras; seminaries.
We
should emphasize here that the aforementioned list is woefully partial, not
only in terms of the members of the list, but also in terms of how each member
is minimally explored. Elevators, for
example, exist in infinite variety:
freight, passenger; express, local; manual, automatic; rickety, smooth;
crowded, solitary; stuck, stationary, moving; ascending, descending; business,
industrial, non-profit, academic, governmental; fenestrated, not; having just
contained famous people; with signs of various languages; referred to in a work
of literature; with strangers, friends, acquaintances; mirrored, wooded,
metalled; with doors on two sides¾and this
but just an infinitesimal portion of all available elevators. Indeed, the initiate could devote this first
year¾yea,
even her lifetime!¾to only
exploring elevator love. It is our
sadness, the melancholy of our species, that so little time has been
given. So even in this early stage of
the Exercises, the initiate may glimpse the limitations imposed by mortality
and begin to feel the grief at the heart of the human soul.
It
almost goes without mention that all modes of transportation should be explored¾from the well known
car to planes, trains and submarines; carriages; tractors, and all manner of
farm instruments including wagons; jinrikshas; taxis; battleships, including
aircraft carrier; motored two-wheel vehicles; submarines; air balloons and
blimps; roller coasters; schooners; paddle boats; hydrofoils and ferries;
chariots.
In
terms of this year of adventure, with its buffet of bodies, its modes and
devices, and its myriad locations, this hullabaloo of union, the initiate will
inevitably expose herself to risk, both externally, in terms of the elements
and the derangement and cruelty of people generally, as well as internally, in
terms of disease¾if she
does not, she is not performing these Exercises but some others¾however, she should
so perform them in such a way as to not unduly endanger her life. Inevitably, though, some will die.
Up
to this point, we have explored congress itself: the act of coupling, and its minimal
contexts: the partners, the methods and
devices, the immediate physical environment.
Finally, however, we explore the equally important sphere of
possibility. The initiate should develop
the ability to walk into a room and immediately have everyone in the room
desire her. She should develop the
ability to not simply create this energy, but sustain and grow it, according to
her will. She should use every tool
imaginable and make every tool imaginable at her disposal: word, fashion, image, reputation, power. This pursuit of possibility is separate from
the pursuit of union itself and should not be confused with it. The initiate should pursue possibility only
with the intent of creating possibility and desire, not with the intent of
consummation. While consummation may of
course occur, the initiate should be able to create possibility without
consummation inevitably occurring; that is, she should find pleasure¾and excessive
pleasure¾in
creating possibility; she should work toward finding as much pleasure¾albeit of a
different kind¾in creating
desire as in fulfilling it. For this
ability to create desire, as we will discover as we progress through these
Exercises, is fundamental to the creation of a work of art. A work of art¾at least the kind of which we speak here¾can be thought of
as desire incarnate; this is what the artist aims for, and this is ultimately
why this skill must be mastered. But we
get ahead of ourselves; at the present stage, the initiate should focus on
creating and enjoying the possibility of sexual pleasure, with the enjoyment
coming both from the possibility and the creation of the possibility.
Image
Image,
in its crass form, is fame; or, rather, as image is popularly understood. However, it is the perspective of these
Exercises that fame is a possible, if not likely, by-product of image, although
image in its transience often leads to transient fame. Regardless, the initiate should keep in mind
that fame itself should not be pursued, but image, and if fame should appear
for a brief time, then that is good within the confines of this first year, for
fame, like comforts and like sex, is desired by the commoner, and it inspires
envy when it occurs. Envy breeds petty
imitations, which are more risible than that which they imitate only because
they heap pettiness onto commonness.
By
image, we mean that the initiate should copy herself as often as possible, into
as many forms as possible. The basic
forms, however, are two: word, in terms
of replicated names; and pictures, either static or moving of the initiate’s
face and possibly face and body. On rare
occasions, the initiate may be recognizable through other forms, such as
symbols, signs, sounds, smells, even tastes.
Consideration
should not be given to quality at this stage; the emphasis in these early years
is on the accumulation of experience and an exposure to the world which has
both breadth and depth. Quantity should
be the only consideration, which is image’s nature: to propagate itself endlessly, meaninglessly,
infinitely.
Although
the basic forms of exposure are two¾word and
picture¾the
forms within these forms are many.
Simply, the initiate’s objective is to be spoken about by as many people
as possible as often as possible, and be seen by as many people as possible as
often as possible. By seen, of course,
we mean in copied form. The initiate may
very well choose to minimize her actual exposure, other than for purposes
outlined in the previous sections. For
the purposes of these Exercises, and for the purposes of much of the world, the
copy is as good, and often better, than the original. This also is a principle that should be kept
in mind as we proceed.
