initiation;

We do not really want what we think that we want. There is always something extra, something for which the desired object is a symbol, its undead more-than-itself quality. The worst thing that can happen to a desire is that it becomes Real, that its inner emptiness is uncovered. The Real is its nightmare-state.

Speech developed when we, at one point in our evolution, figured out that we needed to embrace the radical emptiness of our lives without resorting to defensive, self-defeating barking sounds. Then we invented quietness, which helped us develop the sciences. We learned to relate to our systems of barking-sounds reflexively and thus the humanities were born under the night of Pan.

The currently prevalent view of the humanities as a neutral, self-referential field of research has effectively banished it to the ivory tower, again contributing to a culture of smug defensiveness on part of the scolarly community, a vicious circle and a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bereft of its active, initiatory aspect, the whole academic field loses part of its purpose and function. Normal, healthy, wholesome people have no need for it, some say, yet we remain enclosed in our broken language-state under the night of Pan.

Initiation is not an attempt to make another person whole – that is a monstrosity – but rather on the contrary to make the candidate aware of the objects A and a, the fracture in speech, and to deal with it as an adult instead of chasing it like an insect to a bug-light; to make him or her aware of how empty its core is and how it, ever out of grasp, drives his behaviour as well as that of others. In the same process the candidate learns to know the latent death drive that drove him or her from the parole state and through initiation in the first place, and aware of the unconscious symbiotic relation between it and the pleasure principle. He shall know Joy, for it is true freedom from all fear. But first he shall know panic, the night of Pan.

During the great work, the candidate is lead into a language-less state which he accepts by his own free will, only thus can he understand how the will is free (of content) and wrapped in a Belief System or Barking Scribbles (henceforth BS). He must be lead, quietly, to his inner State of Exception or totemic Otherself normally half-asleep in BS. Let the candidate percieve and recognize its animal gaze, let him befriend it in silent communication and make new words, new BS, secret runes which he must not say or even write down, only keep in mind. Let him come to know it as himself, and let him if necessary have a glass of wine or beer ready and drink it, slowly, in the night of Pan.