GRGR(3) - The Cabal: The Quest for the One & Only Slothrop

[David Morris]

Spectro & Pointsman consulting in the lab:
(47.23) The autoclave simmers its fine clutter of steel bones.  Steam drifts
into the glare of the gooseneck lamp, now and then becoming very bright, and
the shadow of men's gestures may pass through it, knife-edged, swooping very
fast.  But both these faces are unusually reserved, kept well back, in the
annulus of night. [Annulus: Etymology: Medieval Latin, from Latin annulus
finger ring, from anus ring]

(48.11) In here the tiny office space is the cave of an oracle: steam
drifting, sibylline cries arriving out of darkness... Abreactions of the
Lord of the Night...
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These two are mad scientists, Frankenstein-style.  Their goal/means is a
Magic-Science, Alchemy?  The Night is the land where the Unconscious breaks
through to this world via dreams.  The Lord of the Night?

Pointsman seeks a "breakthrough" into uncharted lands of psychiatry, a
discovery which will lift him to the realm of the gods.  He seeks it through
a mind pushed "ultraparadoxical" or maybe even beyond...   Pathology, the
abnormal, the extreme is examined to observe the mechanics of disease
AMPLIFIED, to see if keys can be found to "adjust" the machine.

Pointsman's motive seems to be self-aggrandizement.  Is he a zealot, seeking
to enshrine Pavlov's god? (Hee Hee)  Is he a genuine searcher?

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He (and many others) think/hope they have found the Holy Grail in Slothrop
(48.18):

[Pointsman:] "Unethical?"
[Spectro:] [...]"No, I'm only trying to justify it, experimentally. I can't.
It's only one man. [The Only One]
[Pointsman:] "It's [THE] Slothrop [!!!].  You know what he is.  Even Mexico
thinks... oh, the usual. Precognition. Psychokinesis. [...] But suppose
_you_ had [...] ...some pathology, a perfect mechanism..."

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Slothrop embodies EVERYONE'S key to the universe.  They all want him.  He
explains/embodies EVERYTHING!  And if they can't have him, control him,
they'd rather kill him.  A familiar sub-theme: Christ and the Pharisees.