A book like no other

Being interested in underground fiction, especially of the esoteric and horrific, someone close to me recommended that I read a particular ebook, called The Old Dark Man, by Timothy Keeble.

In particular they suggested I read it because it came closest to defining and explaining how Evil actually functions in the world. Not in any sensationalist way, although the story itself is incredibly shocking, but it's routes through the human heart and mind.

On the surface it is a story about a man who is asked to clear the house of a former serial killer, of it's murderous psychic residue and it's still-trapped ghosts, the experience sending him over the edge into another reality, which is where most of the story takes place, in some kind of tropical half-world, part reality, part the fabric of his internal soul. But there is way more to this story than meets the eye.

I must admit, I wonder if it does actually make it to main house publication, just how long it is likely to remain on the shelves before it gets banned. I feel this strongly about how much of the hidden dynamics of evil it actually reveals that, were the concepts (completely new in my humble opinion) raised in the book made generally known, that something entirely new would happen in the collective subconscious that I'm not sure wouldn't leave many 'casualties' in it's wake.

People DO actually snap after encountering ideas that back up their darkest paranoid suspicions about what is really going on in the world, and normally we can laugh it off.....Catcher in the Rye/John Lennon being an example, in that there seems no link, or such a tenuous one that we can rest assured the guy who shot him was nuts. But with The Old Dark Man, I am genuinely concerned.

I wouldn't ban the book personally, being an absolutist libertine, but I am sure the timid at heart wouldn't hesitate to.

If you're interested, and I'm sure I wont be the last person to talk about this book, it's on lulu.com as an ebook.

I'm sure, when I've digested it more thoroughly, I will have a lot more to say about it.

Why is it that you think it's ban-worthy? Is it that you think it explains the dynamics of evil so well and so realistically that it will bring awareness or even awaken this side in the people who read it?

It might.

Lord. Now I'm sounding very melodramatic.

But yes, that's it. I'm concerned what it may do to unprepared minds, and in turn what those minds may then conclude and act upon.

I mean, let's not jump ship here, it is just a story. But there's an energy around the reading of this book that is palpable.

My mom has always felt that way about horror movies. That it both validates people with a propensity for such acts and gives them ideas.

Do you think this book is more dangerous than a horror movie?

I remember reading that Ted Bundy felt that violent porn was the main cause of his acts - that it gradually numbed him to the reality of it and turned him in to what he was.

I have found out for myself that repeat exposure to violent or fatality films severely lessens the shock that they initially impose. Maybe it was out of a fear that I could become a violent or murderous person myself that I consciously decided never to choose to watch them ever again.

I avoid horror movies and the like now and to be honest I can't say I've ever missed them. In fact, the thing I remember most about watching horror movies was the torture of trying to sleep the night after. Where is the fun in that?

Do I think it more dangerous than a horror movie?

That would entirely depend on which movie we were talking about.

I find the horror movies of the last ten years, with the exception of Rob Zombie's 'Halloween' which is a phenomenal film regardless of it's intense shock and gore, to be less in the genre of horror, and more in a new catagory of 'terror'. Films like the Saw franchise, Hostel, Wolf Creek, Eden Lake etc are less about horror, and more, in my opinion, exercises in portraying hopelesness. Absolutely no one gets saved, and this seems to be the inherent voyeuristic intent desired by makers and audiences alike, exposing their inner worlds for all to see. I shudder when I contemplate it too much. Not because I percieve the audience as potential copycats, but more at their hidden impotence in life that makes them want to overcompensate for it in this way. They don't want to do the killing themselves, but they want to 'get off' on watching it being done.

But books are a different thing. A much more intimate thing. And for a moment bear in mind that most psychopathic killers, in the main, are also rampant pseudo-intellectuals, with a grandiose sense of self importance, constantly on the look out for reassurance and attention. Books have a perhaps undeserved aura of intellectuality about them, much more so than films. Maybe you see where I'm going with this?

Ted Bundy was in no way triggered by violent pornography, but it certainly helped in giving him an aesthetic to rest within and feel to a certain extent 'normal'. But nothing Bundy said on any matter can be trusted. His modus operandi was always to forcefully attempt to be centre of attention. This is a foundational modus for any psychopath, good attention or bad they've still got your awareness, and your awareness is all you are. Subconsciously, all psychopaths know and desire this, because at their root they are unaccepted infants.

Personally I feel horror films are a shamanic tool. Where people see desensitisation as a bad thing, I see it as a fundamental good.

When we die, and are temporarily subsumed into our imaginations, which is both the language our soul uses to talk to our mind, and a terrain unto itself, there is no way that what we experience at that point can be turned off, so to speak. Most people black out at this point because the fear experienced is too great to integrate. Like a bad acid trip, fear leads to images of fear and thus to more and more fear, much more than would be feasibly contained by consciousness when housed in the human body. Believe it or not, the experience of feelings can be amplified infinitely.

And so, experiencing the 'images' of fear, and becoming desensitised to them whilst on Earth, means you are ultimately more balanced when this moment arises. I'm not suggesting for a moment that horror films should be 'prescribed' to everyone in this context. But for those with the subconscious suspicion of what lies ahead beyond this temporal realm, they are more likely to have the propensity to want to experience these horrific images and dream-like scenarios.

But the image, and the actuality, are two different things entirely.

And wishing to enact, has less to do with the influence of imagery, and more to do with the enjoyment of inflicting pain. There have always been psychopaths,. There haven't always been horror films.

But this book, The Old Dark Man, is something else entirely.

What it does is actually explain Evil. I have never seen this done before. Everything I have read before always leaves a feeling of a sort of mysterious open-endedness. This book resolves Evil.

So the threat I see comes not from any misplaced intention of 'good' to protect people from it.

The threat I see is of Evil cornered, and what it may do to rebalance the odds.

I like your posts. You articulate your thoughts well.

You have the conviction that feelings can be amplified infinitely - I'm wondering, where does this conviction come from?

But if you believe this then wouldn't that make any desensitization futile when confronting the afterlife (the concept you have of it that is)?

The possible scenario you describe:

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Like a bad acid trip, fear leads to images of fear and thus to more and more fear, much more than would be feasibly contained by consciousness when housed in the human body.

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Isn't that a problem better solved with thought control than desensitization?

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The threat I see is of Evil cornered, and what it may do to rebalance the odds.

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Could you elaborate on this? I get the feeling that you're taking some knowledge you have for granted and so it comes off kind of cryptic.

The desensitisation is not futile. The whole point of life is to teach consciousness balance, in all things. So that when you die, and are in a space where feelings have the possibility of being infinitely amplified, as I say, you don't wander off into extremities of any feeling or emotion (really it's just love and fear). Because what happens is your soul becomes subsumed into those feelings, and you lose individuality. And if it becomes subsumed into fear, it's can be very hard for a shaman to come find you.

But we are only talking about a tiny minority of people who will encounter this problem.

Most people just black out, and are reborn having had their previous life wiped.

And the quote about Evil being cornered.

Good and Evil only exist because of, not in spite of each other. Lose one and you instantly lose the other. So it will never happen on the planes in which they exist that either will consume the other. Never.

But they are constantly at war, however, constantly defining themselves unto themselves through battle with the other.

The Old Dark Man, the book that started this particular thread, by revealing areas where Evil has had the gain on Man with out him being aware of it, means that Evil has to drop those areas and find others.

Which is exciting and terrifying both.

It's changes like these that move mankind into new eras.

And finally......my conviction, and where it comes from.

Experience, exactly of the things I describe. Simply that.

I am one of those unfortunate creatures who have walked many times beyond the veil and into the unknown, and come back to find that no one will believe me, making all my experiences entertaining, certainly, but useless to anyone except me, and others who have also been there..

Ah I see what you mean. I was confused into thinking that you simply meant desensitization to gore or terror. I see you were thinking more along the lines of desensitization of fear - or more concisely I think, facing one's fears in this life. Which of course is an excellent pursuit.

But is avoiding scary or gory entertainment really running from fear? (not to be confused with avoiding scary or gory situations in real life or dream life though) To actively seek out scary or gory entertainment in the attempt to lessen the impact of one's personal fears seems to be missing the point. Shouldn't one just try to face one's own personal fears instead of indulging in other's?

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Good and Evil only exist because of, not in spite of each other. Lose one and you instantly lose the other. So it will never happen on the planes in which they exist that either will consume the other. Never.

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Of course. That is one of the basic principles of duality and Yin and Yang - which, judging by this, you're probably familiar with.

I would be interested in hearing about your experiences into the unknown if you don't mind sharing. You could pm me as well if you would prefer that.

I actualy mean desensitisation of the imagery of fear.

This process, shamanically, is ancient.

You will never overcome fear. Fear is far too big to contain without fragmenting your spirit.

When it comes time to consciously watch as your body is destroyed in front of you, which is just one of many deaths the spirit has to face should it choose to expand its consciousness, and which can obviously be a terrifying ordeal, not being totally overwhelmed by the experience is the goal.

I am not saying that the imagery of horror films gives you some kind of immunity when this time comes, but it does buy you just enough distance not to lose yourself entirely. A bit of the watcher, your higher self if you will, will be waiting for what might come after. You will still be intensely shocked, as you watch the ways your familiarity with your body is taken from you, but you wont black out. Which is the whole point.

And if you don't black out, then you get to experience formlessness. Which is not an end in itself, but a precursor to pan-dimensionalism and non-dimensionalism, what Timothy Keeble calls the 'overflowing void' in his book.

What you see as admirable in this life, confronting your fears, is the first step toward this process of shamanic death.

People do not confront their fears so that they are better able to confront them again, although this is what they tell themselves. They do it, subconsciously, to acclimatise themselves to not being overcome by fear as a feeling. Which is a kind of preparation for the moments after bodily death.

I certainly don't mind sharing experiences, in posts, or privately.

I just never know what to talk about until prompted. Or unless I'm particularly angry that someone is being spritually misleading for egocentric gain.

It is also a minefield, I should add, describing experiences to those who have yet to have them. Or worse, who think they have had them. I'm always more scared by people who agree with me.