Charley and Houdini

Houdini / ORACLE is ready for your input.

Charley

Sacred geometry, Sacrifice, Mountain, Mitch, Clock, Hum of Electricity, Computer, Stone Circle, Car Sickness, this is what is present in Charley's mind as she casts her question out to the ARPANET. She had every intention of sharing data and working with probabilities, and she may yet. But now she types her question, "WHAT MAKES A PERSON ILLUMINATED?" and "WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO THE SPIRAL?"

ORACLE spits out some thoughts, suppositions, and predictions nearly immediately about the Illuminated, posing them as "linchpin" human beings who prove themselves as essential crux points in history and probability. ORACLE's perspective, as an outgrowth of GRAIL TABLE's core code, is necessarily historical and esmological.

Houdini speaks to Charley in very different terms, though. "Archimedes said that 'Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.' A man still has to have the muscles to move the lever and the right fulcrum to leverage it. But this idea of the Illuminated, enlightened human beings who move through history and influence it at key moments, is a common one throughout occult history. Not only do they know more than the common run of man, they know how to use that knowledge. They possess the muscle and the lever."

Charley

Charley is spinning in her chair looking up at the ceiling as she ponders enlightened beings. "Houdini would you want to be enlightened?"

"I was the best at what I did. That was good enough for me. To be honest with you, child, it was my braggadocio that got me killed. My prominence eventually became too big a threat for the Invaders from without, and they put an end to that lifespan. But Illuminated? That is an entire other level of responsibility and power and prominence. The Invaders give those people a wide, wide berth."

Charley

"I was thinking about your state of existence and wondered what you want and what you could be ... Houdini, we are in trouble ... We are losing the St. Francis hotel and all our friends in it to the Red Kings' realm. But we can redirect the hotel back to our place and time with an inter-dimensional transportation device, and we have one. We also need an Illuminated mind to help guide the St. Francis home; we have that too. But what's bad is the device would kill that person with the amount of radiation it would shower upon them. But! But, what if you could guide it?"

"A critical shift, eh? Seems I solved one of these already with your friends in Colorado, it should be child's play to solve another. What is it about hotels? Anyway ... you seek to anchor the hotel here, are you using the battlefield of belief to bring the hotel back fully to this world? That is the easiest method. There are people in the hotel, yes? All it took was 10 people in seance with me to bring the Stanley Hotel back. I'm sure your team can find that many people and bind them together in your hotel."

"As for transportation devices and radiation, these are not my forte. But an Illuminated mind to guide it needing to die ... yes, that would make sense. What are the Illuminated but, after their own fashion, stories and narratives made manifest. If they use their power and wisdom to separate or bring together different worlds, of course they would die in the bargain."

Charley

“Yes but if we could make you Illuminated. Say if we could give you the muscle and lever to do it but with out the body. Well then, no one would need to die.”

"Um, Charley, wouldn't a shower of radiation destroy the, er, information on this magnetic reel I am trapped within?"

Charley

“Probably but not if we protected you in lead. Ah, but you’re right it won’t work.”

ORACLE's read on the spiral is more mathematical, of course, as would make sense: analyses of the golden ratio and spirals in nature and of course the history of the cyclotron. Honestly ORACLE, given its GRAIL TABLE origins, might look at spirals in relation to historical cycles as well: population growth, settlement and colonization, and other historical trends. There's not that much in ORACLE's predictive databanks on spirals in relation specifically to History B either. Houdini can tell you, though, that the spiral is a rich symbol in the occult and in world spirituality. It does represent the cycles of nature, of course. It also can represent the life path ... or the process of the transmigration of souls.

"Reincarnation." Houdini says in Charley's mind, with an edge of uncertainty ... or fear? Charley can't quite tell.

"The serpent," Houdini says. "The knowledge of good and evil. A symbol of rebirth, shucking off its old skin and walking among us. Did you know the snakes walk among us, Charley?"

Charley

Charley was less interested in the spiral's symbolism and more interested in the counter or the opposing symbol. But you need to be very direct when communing with ORACLE. And Houdini. Well, with Houdini, you never know what his response might be.

"Snakes walking among us? I've never seen any ah? I've never seen 'em walking? You mean metaphorically?"

"Howard saw them, near the end. I remember his letter to me, saying that the Serpent Men of the Hollow Earth were under the mounds of the ancients. And some say that they walk among us still, that they are the origin of the tales of men clad formally, all in black, with dark skin and hypnotic eyes, who entrance mortals who happen to witness the happenings of the other world. Some say that they walk among us to find the souls that are reborn again and again. That their serpent nature is meant to ferret out the nests and hiding places of fugitive souls from the other history ... and bring them back. You know the old fairy tale of the changeling child, no?"

Charley

Charley can't help look around the room nervously before answering. "A changeling is a fairy that was left in place of a child stolen by the fairies."

"That's right. Or, say, the cuckoo. Who leaves its egg in other birds' nests. It is a metaphor for so-called History B, is it not? They leave their accidents, their spirals of probability, their chains of coincidence for us to stumble over, and improbable things suddenly happen. Objects have been found to have always been here, people born yesterday but everyone remembers them having lived there for fifty years, yes? It is the same with some human souls. The interference from History B helps prepare vessels for their irruption. And what better vessel than a human body host to a recycled soul. It already exists in a quantum superposition with all its other past lives. So such a soul is easy enough for probability and retrocreation to, shall we say... eject."

"Anyway. Such was a theory being bandied about when I was alive. That the so-called Serpent Men irruptors help move certain souls into position. The psychic vampire irruptors, of course, but they are primitive, simple beings, really. The bašmu's true masters are the angels of hell, the šedu."

Charley

"Um, when you talk about ejecting souls, are you talking about possession of a history B soul over A? And who was bandying about these theories?"

"This would be a History B soul inhabiting a body here and ejecting the History A reborn soul. A new soul with a whole set of memories and experiences commensurate with having lived in a world ruled by the Anunnaki."

Houdini is absolutely mum on "who was bandying about these theories" back in the '10s and '20s. He just ... ignored Charley's question.

And Charley feels like Houdini is generally being evasive. Like he's telling Charley stories that will specifically apply to her, as a reincarnated soul, and honestly stories that would possibly even scare her, in the name of giving her privileged information from his own lifetime fighting the Irruptors. But it all seems a little ... performative. In true stage-magician fashion.

Charley

Charley yawns. "Well, that sounds like SANDMAN ghost stories to me. But if that's it. I'll log off now."

"No Charley wait." The urgency of Houdini's voice in Charley's head through the I/O Tap is clear.

"They're not ghost stories. At least, ah, well, maybe they are now; with all your technology and advancements in fighting the Enemy over the past 50 years, my analysis must seem pretty meaningless. But you have to understand that, aside from Wilkie's secret service know-how and the fellows in psychology and advertising, most of the people we were able to recruit into fighting the Anunnaki back then ... were mystics. And those people looked at the Enemy in a far more mystical context. A lot of them felt like History B was the variable behind every magical and religious tradition on Earth. I suppose technically they would be correct. But that's why my answers probably aren't as useful to you. As for the fears around past lives ... well, Charley, perhaps I've misspoken today. Perhaps my bitterness over my ... condition was causing me distress which I took out on you with those ... ghost stories. I do apologize."

"I suppose so much of my fascination with past lives since... since dying has to do with why I am still here. Why my soul hasn't found rebirth. I am sure the Buddhists would say I am in a hell of my own devising, one directly caused by my hubris in escaping even death."

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