Haus der Luege : Noli Evocare Quod Reprimere Non Potes

I’ve been rereading Illuminatus! for the 3rd or fourth time. What I’m finding interesting about the experience is that there’s always more in the book than I previously realized. My focus this time is on the way that the characters develop through initiatory processes.

One observation is that the kinds of initiatory shocks the characters receive are fairly traditional in their intent, if not always in their particular forms. When I compare this to the kinds of experience that I’ve had both in formal group initiation and the times initiation has manifested in my life, it leaves me wondering if I started from the wrong point. The characters, and many of my friends have had very strong emotional reactions to initiation; it ‘is’ a transformative experience for them. My own experiences have always been taken in stride. The patterns have always been recognizable to me, and there is a sense of inevitability and frankly, a rather jaded, passionless engagement with the process- and indeed, when a cycle has played out, I’m left often left with a vague sense of disappointment that there wasn’t more to it. It’s almost like there’s some of Taoist at the controls who simply accepts the even, processes the experience, and then lets it go until the next one comes along. The IAO cycle plays through very quickly for me. There’s a sense of “Is that seriously all you had for me this time? Well, it’s a nice t-shirt, at any rate.” Is there such a thing as being too far over on the h. neophilus side?