Deus Ex Machina:

The spirit vein in humanity demands by an inexplicable faith the explaination of chaos through numbers, and quantum is the Christ of physics. Poeple who can barely lick the grease off the plate of theoretical physics are devout in the idea of this new saviour.. What else is heaven but another dimension cognizable and equally inexplicable? What else is deity than a variable of infinite exponent pertaining to an exploded quantum neuromap?

If science were faith, then scientists such as Stephen Hawkins must be bodhisattvas. Living enlightened ones, whose sacrifice is not always as present as their gifts to humanity. And, according to Rev R. L. Seitz, physics is a glyph codemap, like the many tools of learning we as people have created over the centuries. Hell, science is as systematic a code as you can get. Examples of historic codemaps: I Ching, Astrology, Rabbinic Kabbalah, Heiroglyphic Art, Tarot, Tantra Gnostica, Orphic Ritual, Hermetic Alchemy, Oriental Alchemy, Indian Musical Scale. Examples of recent [1600 CE+] codemaps: Masonic Rites, Rosicrucianism, Golden Dawn Kabbalah, Binary [010100], Modern Music Scale, Table of Elements, the Genetic Serpent. With this primer step into the world of an artist and author of the texts "Iconographia" and "Bella Santos".

333: To start off with, is Rev Seitz a pen name?

RS: Fair question, but, as they say, neither here nor there. That's precisely the kind of information that's not necessary in publication. Of course with the real people I see day to day, the ones I smell and see and look at, we're all on a first name basis. Otherwise any title in print is just that: print. Part of the infinite faces of Brahma, as demonstrated by Jimi Hendrix on the cover of Axis: Bold as Love when he superimposed his band's faces over that of the infinite deity.

333: Bukowski is neither the last nor least to camp the death of poetry. Are modern times destroying the value of names, the art of writing?

RS: Not at all. Since the invention of typesetting, on up through the insane amounts of data available now, languagelanguage has grown increasingly codified and unchangeable. It really takes all my attention to consume archaic english like that of Shakespeare. But I have a feeling Bukowski will be accessible for much much longer.

333: But spoken dialect still thrives in every American city.

RS: The linguists will never be retired. Spoken word is alive, as opposed to stored. Common language has been called the Language of the Birds by the Sufis. One never knows what will come out of a birds beak. People will always be affected by performance, wether or not they amuse themselves by reading. Or wether or not it is voluntary, as is the case with a lot of Evangelical work.

333: What does writing need more of?

RS: A new breed of librarian needs to be recognized. These are the archivists, hard at work, most without any kind of degree or formal training. On the internet or shuffling around dark basements in bookseller's shops, there are people who put together a mirror hall of information into some sensible rythm. I think you can see us all collectively trying to do that with the internet, and the practise of offering up 'links', to further the stream of information provided by a given point. I think people are seeing themselves in perspective, and are aware that by performing the role of a pointer they are somehow ccnnected to that subject they cherish. It is very different from being a fan.

333: Let's talk about the books. In Iconography you are discussing art as though it were written language, and use Egyptian and Tantric painting styles as examples. Why those particular cultures?

RS: There are many reasons. I like their szygy quality, the prominence of monads. Ancient Egyptian is a dead language, while the subject of Tantra is still created, danced and documented extensively. I've always wanted to write a bit of speculative fiction about what would have happened if Egyptian, and not Judeo-Roman culture was predominate in a more or less identical Western world. I think we would be a bunch of Hindus. The art-language of Egypt has always captivated our modern minds. People don't even care what it's called, only that it never fails to draw comments from the guests. And Isis, nobody ever really let go of her. I think in our dreams she is one of the few remaining vestiges of that religion. Likewise for Tantra, now that our contact with the East is finally re-established. Karma is becoming a better understood term. While we were re-learning literacy in Europe, the oldest book in the world - a sanskrit scroll - was pulled from the shelf of a library for the thousandth time.

333: So it's a matter of accessibility that the orient follows much later than the big explosions of Egyptian fever?

RS: Around the turn of our century Tibet was thought of as Forbidden, and as a peepshow curiosity for its tortures. Now you can stroll into a bookstore and browse their sacred texts. I think that to discuss something close to your heart you simply have to hang around the right neighborhood.

333: And your focus is the art.

RS: That is what gives me the most passion. I think art keeps religion alive more than the hearts of the people, at times. The visual is the fastest way to your skull. That's why our dreams acan be motion-picture spectaculars, and the term Revelation is synonymous with Vision. It has always seemed evident to me that Tantric Art was am ipso facto exchange of image for idea. Those fascinating, multi-armed multi-headed and often demonic entities are available for translation to the last detail. To be seen with the eyes shut, a re-arrangeable concept. The goddess Kali is always depicted with a strand of 50 severed heads around her neck. This means she wears the fifty kinds of personality: not that she is the goddess of mass-murder. This is the central Tantrik theme.

> 333: So the art is a codemap?

RS: Right. And over time, it will have just as many faces as its creators, yet its entirety will be whole and holy and to change it will be blasphemy, and on and on...

333: And you're saying that Tantric Art a contemporary of Ancient Egypt?

RS: If this living religous philosophy employs such literal relationships between image and sound and meaning, why couldn't that be applied to the phonetic picture-language of the Pharoes? But I am not an anthropologists, and I don't want to appeal to the historians. I want to affect the way people look at things. There are individuals like Bika Reed who are applying totally different ways of translating using simpler, more anthro-friendly means.

333: As you said, some people just want an attractive peice in their home, and could care less about this dialogue. So what can be changed?

333: A lot of people seem uncomfortable with the images of the East.

RS: It's true, some of them are horrific, but then a part of each of us is as well. One of my favorite Jack Chick tracts is one about two Christians on a motor tour in India. Surrounded by towering Dravidic temples, one of them says, "Wow, so many Devils!" to which the other replies, "Yes, there are over one million of them!" And yet it is evident by the detail and quality of the linework in this picture that the artist enjoyed their execution. So the image had caught his imagination even as he was repulsed by what he saw in them.

333: What is faith?

RS: It is something fleshy, like anything it lives or dies. It's difficult to tell the two apart: rosy cheeks could be arousal or a fever. Unless you think of faith in the way it relates to your heart and mind, either causing a growth or promoting truth decay. I am always amazed when eachvisit to the bookseller it seem as though the theology section is continually adding on. This is all relative numbers. So much trash has to reveal a certain amount of diamond. And diamond is more plentiful than the consumer thinks.

333: That brings Bella Santos into the picture. It seems, well optimistic.

RS: It is meant to be a refutation of the Apocalypse. At least the rapture side of it. Apocalypse can be looked at as a phenomenon without seeing it as a prophecy. This just might explain whyso many mystics return to the theme time and again. Apocalypse is a phenomenon in almost any culture. It might materialise poeticly, like doom-saying at the check-out aisle, or it may manifest psychologically, like hot summer night riots and the expected new viruses.

333: Does this mean we discredit people who declare the Apocalypse?

RS: I'll answer that indirectly. Want to know what really turns a teacher on? Arousing a nihilist to reaction. That's what apocalypse is: something that can attract even the imaginations of hopeless cynics.

333: Okay, so idea and faith are living things. Are the revival of ante-Christian religious ideas, namely Paganism and Gnosticism, a due result of this process?

RS: You can't corner it that way... the rules of evolution and entropy will step all over you. If the process were a lotus, you would be asking to second guess the natural placement of the leaves. What all this means is, yes, devils and daemons have a place too. You can't block the deluge of information forever. Eventually some spermatazoa of insight will penetrate and fertilise your natal egg-soul. Then you'll realise how much time you've been spending with a serpent swimming in your fluid.