MDDM Ch. 75 Messages

[David Morris]

Very nice post, Mr. Monroe.

These quotes link subterranean passion and Tellurick Forces, "waged" lives 
vs. "lived" ones.  Passionately involuntary and very base earth/life forces 
are the focus here.  This is a mythology of the Eath Mother.  War is natural 
because Reason has not yet (in this realm) to subdue Passion.  Repression 
has not yet emerged from the muck.  Rumble in the Jungle still...

Love,
David Morris

>From: Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>
>
>    "'You receive Messages from us, by way of your
>Magnetic Compasses.  What you call the "Secular Change
>of Declination" is whatever dim'd and muffl'd remnant
>may reach you above, of all the lives of us Below,--
>being less liv'd than waged, at a level of Passion
>that would seem, to you, quite intense.  We have
>learn'd to use the Tellurick Forces, including that of
>Magnetism,-- which you oddly seem to consider the only
>one.'
>    "'There are others?' Mason perking up." (M&D, Ch.
>75, p. 740)
>
>Cf. not only ...
>
>"'These Data arriv'd but this Instant, by the German
>Packet,-- the latest Declination Figures.  Our
>easterly movement, in Pennsylvania, as it's been doing
>in latter Years, decelerates, yet,-- here, 'tis four
>point five minutes east,' as Dixon attentively gazes
>over her shoulder, 'when in the year 'sixty, 'twas
>four point six.  If you head South, 'twill be three
>point nine at Baltimore.'
>    "'Were these measur'd Heights,' her murmurs, 'a
>very Precipice.'
>    "'What Could be causing it, do you imagine?'
>    "'Something underground, moving Westward...?'"
>    "'Hush.'  Her Eyes rapidly sweep the Vicinity.  'No
>one ever speaks of that aloud here,-- what sort of
>incautious Lad are you, exactly?'" (M&D, Ch. 30, p.
>299)
>
>http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0201&msg=64595&sort=date
>
>But also ...
>
>"'These Data arriv'd but this Instant, by the German
>Packet,-- the latest Declination Figures.  Our
>easterly movement, in Pennsylvania, as it's been doing
>in latter Years, decelerates, yet,-- here, 'tis four
>point five minutes east,' as Dixon attentivel gazes
>over her shoulder, 'when in the year 'sixty, 'twas
>four point six.  If you head South, 'twill be three
>point nine at Baltimore.'
>    "'Were these measur'd Heights,' her murmurs, 'a
>very Precipice.'
>    "'What Could be causing it, do you imagine?'
>    "'Something underground, moving Westward...?'"
>    "'Hush.'  Her Eyes rapidly sweep the Vicinity.  'No
>one ever speaks of that aloud here,-- what sort of
>incautious Lad are you, exactly?'" (M&D, Ch. 30, p.
>299)
>
>From Patricia Fara, Sympathetic Attractions: Magnetic
>Practices, Beliefs, and Symbolism in Eighteenth-
>Century England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
>UP, 1996), Ch. 6, "God's Mysterious Creation: The
>Divine Attraction of Natural Knowledge," pp. 146-70
>...
>
>    "Whereas we live in a world shaped by
>electromagnetic fields, many educated people of the
>eighteenth century perceived a universe permeated with
>a divine magnetic power.  Like God himself, magnetic
>effects were mysterious....  Ontologies varied .... To
>understand magnetic texts, being aware of these
>differences in theoretical approach is often less
>important than appreciating the cultural implications
>of the magnetic vocabulary.  Magnetic terms were laden
>with inherited connotations which enriched people's
>discussions but can be difficult to retrieve." (p.
>147)
>
>    "The words 'magnetic' and 'sympathetic' were used
>interchangeably in some contexts, echoing earlier
>Neoplatonic beliefes in an animistic, synchronized
>universe." (p. 149)
>
>THE MAGNETIC TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE
>
>"Addressing a Royal Society audience steeped in
>classical culture, [Edmond] Halley ... quoted Latin
>descriptions of the underworld to corroborate his new
>magnetic model of the earth.  'I am sure,' he claimed,
>'the Poets Virgil and Claudian have gone before me in
>this Thought, inlightning their Elysian Fields with
>Sun and Stars proper to those infernal, or rather
>internal, Regions.'  His infernal pun exemplifies the
>religious ramifications of terrestrial magnetism.
>Writers realted the earth's structure to biblical
>narratives and to the location of hell; they sought to
>reconscile the irregular patterns of terrestrial
>magnetism with their conviction of a perfect
>creation." (p. 152)
>
>http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0201&msg=64599&sort=date
>
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