Fantastic Metropolis

Do CIA agents spend their time deliberately transgressing against their own laws and regulations because it gives them magical power? Did they deliberately set themselves so that they would have no choice but to do so? Are they, like the Magi of the Persian Empire or the cultists of Cybele, masters at drawing power from altered states of consciousness like the ones brought about by drugs, sexual activity, and sleep deprivation? Their OSS forebears had access to all sorts of interesting occult ideas… like the encrypted “Noon Blue Apples” message of Saunière. For that matter, you can make a link between the strange ideas of Gérard de Sède and the writings of Kenneth Grant… one of Crowley’s disciples, and a man who took a lot of what H. P. Lovecraft said at face value. (I’ve discussed before how Lovecraft connects back to the Order of the Golden Dawn through Machen and Blackwood. Of course, Crowley was a member… so now we’ve gotten the OSS stuck in all of that.)

Law of Paradox: No world view may encompass the whole world. Two models (or “laws”) may conflict with each other and still be true in their proper context. Two people may experience the same event yet perceive entirely different occurrences. Rationality is limited by the intellect, the world is not. The world is not bound by the confines of our world views. The trick is to switch from one model to another as it becomes appropriate.

—Bill Whitcomb, The Magician’s Companion

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

—Hassan i Sabbah, according to William S. Burroughs

The truth shall set you free.

—Motto of the Central Intelligence Agency

I opened this ramble with a quote from the Bible, because it is the motto of the Central Intelligence Agency. What, I wonder, do they feel the need to be set free from? Why do they seem to follow the law of Thelema (will) above the strictures they themselves put in place to govern them? Why do they wallow in the very activities they claim to abhor, yet claim to be interested above all else in truth? Perhaps because they know full well that the truth is what someone decides it is. In a world gone mad, the mad are as gods, for they know the rules.

We could range across all the theories… how the CIA killed Kennedy (slaying of the sacred king), how they import cocaine into the US (serving as artificial soma, perhaps, or serving the will of Dionysus, lord of intoxication), how they introduced Kennedy to Mary Pinchot Meyer and thus dosed the President with LSD (preparing him for his role as sacrificial lamb?) and, of course, how the Yale secret society Skull and Bones has so thoroughly influenced both the OSS and the CIA (George Bush, you pop up everywhere) with occult songs and rituals. But we’ll never know the truth, I suspect, and so, I suppose we shall never be set free.

I’m now thinking about J. Edgar Hoover. Was he simply a cross-dresser, or was he attempting to slip under the alchemical barriers by being male and female at once? Was Hoover the rebis? Ah, he was FBI anyway.

Discuss this and other heresies at Matthew Rossi’s message board.

Matthew Rossi is the author of Things That Never Were (MonkeyBrain, 2003). He has work forthcoming in Peter Crowther’s Postscripts magazine, and a new collection of essays, titled Bottled Demons, will be out next summer from Prime Books.